Audit chief left in limbo amid ongoing corruption investigation

A South Korean audit official has been on administrative standby for four years without an assigned department or duties, spending workdays moving between waiting rooms before going home. A prolonged investigation by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials has prevented him from taking a post or retiring early.

The official, identified as Kim, came under CIO investigation in October 2021 after the Board of Audit and Inspection requested a probe. The inquiry centered on allegations that Kim, who previously oversaw construction audits, set up a proxy company to win contracts and collected about 1.5 billion won in bribes. After a two-year investigation, the CIO sought an arrest warrant for him in November 2023.

The court rejected the warrant, citing insufficient evidence and disputed calculations of the alleged bribe. The decision effectively required the investigation to start over, including gathering additional evidence and reassessing the bribe amount.

Rather than conducting a supplemental investigation, the CIO referred the case to prosecutors for trial. Under current law, the office can directly investigate and prosecute some high-ranking officials, but for other senior public officials, its authority is limited to investigation. In January last year, prosecutors initially sought to return the case to the CIO for further investigation, but the office refused. After more than 10 months of disagreement, prosecutors began preparing to conduct their own supplemental inquiry and assigned the case to an anti-corruption unit at a local prosecution office.

The situation changed this year when the court denied prosecutors’ request to extend the detention of former President Yoon Seok-yeol in a case investigated by the CIO. The court ruled that prosecutors generally have limited grounds to continue inquiries in cases referred by the CIO. Under this logic, a supplemental investigation into Kim could later be ruled unlawful. Prosecutors have reportedly considered transferring the case to the Board of Audit and Inspection or another agency, but no decision has been made.

The confusion arises from the absence of a legal framework to address incomplete CIO investigations. When the CIO was established in 2020, lawmakers did not clearly define who could conduct supplemental investigations or what authority they would have. If prosecutors submit Kim’s case to trial without conducting supplemental investigations, the long-pending bribery allegations could finally be addressed. However, doing so would contradict the CIO’s founding principles of thorough oversight and protection of rights through checks and balances.

Starting in October next year, South Korea will overhaul its criminal justice system, replacing the prosecution service with the Criminal Investigation Bureau and the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Future legislation will need to clarify whether the Public Prosecutor’s Office can conduct supplemental investigations on cases handled by the new bureau or by the police. Lawmakers must also clarify whether the Public Prosecutor’s Office can request supplemental investigations for CIO cases. If the government keeps the CIO despite its record of six indictments in five years, follow-up legislation must resolve authority disputes among the CIO, the Criminal Investigation Bureau, the police, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.