SEOUL – South Korea’s parliament approved sweeping legislation Friday stripping prosecutors of their investigative authority, creating a dedicated indictment agency while shifting probes to a new body, a reform the government champions as a bulwark against political weaponization of the nation’s potent prosecutorial arm.
President Lee Jae Myung’s liberal Democratic Party framed the bill as vital to severing unchecked powers long accused of shielding allies and targeting foes. The vote enshrines a decades-old push accelerated by scandals around ex-prosecutor Yoon Suk Yeol, whose December 2024 martial law bid – after leveraging the office for his presidency – crystallized demands to dismantle it.
Reform gained steam amid charges that prosecutors bent laws for political gain, eroding democratic safeguards. “The point of the reform was to correct a shameful history of prosecutors changing the standard of the law to suit their political advantage,” said Park Eun-jung, ex-prosecutor and Rebuilding Korea Party lawmaker.
Conservatives mounted a failed filibuster, warning the split could hobble oversight and empower the ruling bloc. Korea University’s Choi Jin-a cautioned it might erode prosecutorial neutrality, rendering police and prosecutors more politically pliable.
Proponents countered that dispersing authority prevents monopolies. “In democracy, no function is controlled by one group, and power works for the people through dispersion and checks,” asserted former Democratic lawmaker Choe Kang-wook.