With the launch of the Public Prosecution Office, a case review committee was established instead of the investigation review committee, and attention was paid to the possibility of President Lee Jae-myung considering the cancellation of the indictment.

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Hwang Jae-ha = Attention is being paid to whether the Investigation Deliberation Committee, which was introduced in the past to prevent abuse of prosecutorial power but was criticized for not playing its role, will be able to supplement its previous limitations by being reorganized into the Case Deliberation Committee with further strengthened functions in the newly launched Public Prosecution Office.

Since the Case Deliberation Committee can actually deliberate and present opinions on the entire work of the Public Prosecution Office, it is also of interest whether it will be involved in the cancellation of the indictment of President Lee Jae-myung's criminal trial, which is the most controversial topic in the political and legal circles.

According to the legal community on the 5th, the Public Prosecution Office, which opened on the 2nd of this month, will abolish the Investigation Review Committee previously operated by the Prosecutors' Office and establish a Case Review Committee to replace it to review cases that attract social attention or are concerns about fairness.

The Prosecutors' Investigation Review Committee, introduced in 2018 as part of prosecution reform, was responsible for checking abuse of prosecutorial power by having external members provide opinions on how to handle sensitive cases.

However, in September 2024, when the Investigation Review Committee, which reviewed whether to indict then-First Lady Kim Kun-hee's luxury bag case, recommended non-indictment, some pointed out that it only added justification to the prosecution's handling of the case and did not serve as a check.

In this case, the civic group 'Information Disclosure Center for a Transparent Society' applied for information disclosure asking for the list of the prosecution's investigation review committee to be made public, but when it was rejected, it filed an administrative lawsuit and appealed against losing in the first trial.

Considering that the newly established Public Prosecutors' Office Case Deliberation Committee does not have investigative authority, unlike the prosecution, the word 'investigation' was excluded from its name and the scale and scope of deliberation were expanded compared to the previous one.

Unlike the Prosecutor's Investigation Review Committee, which was composed of 150 to 250 members at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, the Public Prosecution Service Case Review Committee is established in six metropolitan public prosecution offices (successor of the High Prosecutors' Office) in Seoul, Daejeon, Daegu, Busan, Gwangju, and Suwon, and each has 50 to 200 members. It ranges from a minimum of 300 people to a maximum of 1,200 people.

In the past, the subjects who could apply for deliberation to the Prosecutor's Investigation and Deliberation Committee were limited to those involved in the case, such as the complainant, institutional whistleblower, victim, suspect, or defense attorney, but the chief prosecutor in charge of the case can also apply for deliberation to the Public Prosecution Service's Case Deliberation Committee.

The authority to convene a committee lies with the Prosecutor General in the Prosecutor's Investigation and Deliberation Committee, but lies with the head of the Metropolitan Public Prosecution Office in the Public Prosecution Service's Case Deliberation Committee.

The scope of deliberation has become wider than in the past, and although the Public Prosecution Service's Case Deliberation Committee cannot deliberate on whether to continue the investigation due to its lack of investigative authority, the Prosecutor's Investigation Deliberation Committee also deliberates 'whether to file an appeal', which was not specified as a subject of deliberation.

In addition, the committee must be composed of people with knowledge and experience in the criminal justice system, including those in the legal, academia, and media fields; a person who has been punished by imprisonment or worse and has not passed a certain period of time or has joined a political party cannot become a committee member; and a randomly selected portion of all committee members are in charge of deliberation, and the previous operating method remains the same.

According to the Public Prosecution Service Act, the review targets of the Case Deliberation Committee of the Public Prosecution Service are ▲ Whether to request and re-apply for an arrest warrant, ▲ Whether to file an indictment, ▲ Whether to file an appeal, and ▲ Other matters prescribed by Presidential Decree in relation to the duties of a prosecutor.

Among these, the fourth matter to be determined by the President is "a matter that the head of the Metropolitan Public Prosecution Office recognizes as necessary for deliberation by the Case Deliberation Committee in consideration of the gravity of the case, repetitiveness, need for rights relief, etc." in accordance with the 'Regulations on the Composition and Operation of the Case Deliberation Committee'.

In other words, in fact, if the case is important, the case review committee can review all areas of work that prosecutors are responsible for at the Public Prosecution Office.

In particular, this includes the cancellation of charges in cases already in trial.

Whether or not to cancel the indictment in the case of President Lee Jae-myung, whose trial has been suspended, is the biggest controversy in the political and legal circles.

The Democratic Party of Korea has been calling for the indictment to be canceled, claiming that prosecutors fabricated indictments in President Lee's case since the second half of last year, when the Lee Jae-myung administration took office.

President Lee also said to then-acting Prosecutor General Koo Ja-hyun at a cabinet meeting on June 2, "Anyone can make a mistake. If you make a mistake, apologize and cancel it," without mentioning a specific case, and was criticized by the opposition party for effectively demanding the cancellation of the indictment.

Afterwards, there were speculations that he would push for the cancellation of the indictment in President Lee's case by launching the 'Special Prosecution on Prosecution Manipulation Indictment', and President Lee took action by requesting the National Assembly to delete and pass the cancellation of the indictment clause in the Special Prosecution Act at a press conference on the 18th of last month.

However, President Lee only mentioned the cancellation of the indictment 'by a special prosecutor', so sparks of controversy still remain.

Depending on the results of a future special prosecutor's investigation or the Ministry of Justice's 'Future Committee for Respect for Prosecution Human Rights' investigation, there is the possibility of cancellation of the indictment through the Public Prosecution Office rather than the special prosecutor.

However, even if the case deliberation committee deliberates on whether to cancel the indictment in the future, it is impossible to predict what conclusion it will reach, and there are also observations that the committee deliberation is only an opinion and has no binding power, so it will only serve to form a justification or create public opinion.

An official from the Public Prosecution Service predicted, “According to the provisions of the Public Prosecution Service Act and the Presidential Decree, cancellation of the indictment may also be subject to review by the Case Deliberation Committee,” but predicted, “Regardless of the conclusion reached by the Deliberation Committee, the chief prosecutor handling the case will bear the legal and historical responsibility.”

It is unclear whether the case review committee will undertake unprecedented deliberation despite the controversy.

The previous Prosecutor's Investigation and Deliberation Committee also specified 'other matters submitted to the committee by the Prosecutor General' as the subject of deliberation, but no cases of deliberation on whether to cancel indictments have been found in the eight years that the system has been in operation.