Legal and Prosecution Reform Committee Recommends "Establishing External Expert Personnel Management Plan"

Ministry of Justice's Plan to Realize Prosecutorial Decentralization
Recruitment and Training of Legal Experts for Specialization

[Asia Economy Reporters Seongpil Cho and Seungyoon Song] The Ministry of Justice's Legal and Prosecutorial Reform Committee on the 20th recommended, "To complete the Ministry of Justice's de-prosecutorialization, establish practical personnel management measures that can recruit and nurture outstanding external experts."

In its 12th recommendation announced that day, the Reform Committee stated, "Given the nature of the Ministry of Justice's work, which involves various legal affairs and human rights-related tasks within the government, it is essential to recruit and nurture excellent legal experts in the Ministry of Justice." This means that simply replacing existing prosecutor positions with non-prosecutors in a formal manner should not be the extent of de-prosecutorialization, but rather efforts should be made to enhance the expertise and continuity of legal administration.

As a practical measure to achieve this, the Reform Committee recommended appointing general career civil servants. The committee explained, "It is difficult to recruit and nurture outstanding experts under the fixed-term civil servant system, which restricts length of service, promotion, and transfer, resulting in limitations in improving the expertise and continuity of legal administration. Therefore, from now on, for newly appointed 'practitioner-level (equivalent to general prosecutor level) positions,' efforts should be made to appoint general career civil servants instead of fixed-term civil servants."

The Reform Committee also recommended reviewing the introduction of a 'Government Attorney System (tentative name)' in the mid to long term. This system is intended to supplement the role of legal experts previously performed by prosecutors dispatched to the Ministry of Justice and various executive departments by establishing government attorneys who specialize in legal affairs within the government.

Government attorneys refer to civil servants working in central administrative agencies who specialize in legal tasks such as providing legal advice on policy formulation and legislative drafting for their respective agencies. The Reform Committee noted that major advanced countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia already employ legal experts in various ways and have established separate organizations for their management.

As specific measures to promote the Government Attorney System, the Reform Committee recommended establishing a new 'special service civil servant (government attorney)' system to perform legal expert roles within the government and creating a separate civil servant category in the Ministry of Justice's Legal Affairs Office, recognizing the unique nature of the work.

The Reform Committee expressed expectations that "by continuously recruiting and nurturing outstanding legal experts, an environment will be created to enhance the expertise and continuity of legal administration, thereby completing the irreversible de-prosecutorialization of the Ministry of Justice."