Only 6.1% of All Prosecution Staff
Most Choose to Work at the Public Prosecution Office
Although the investigative functions of the prosecution will be transferred to the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency (SCIA) with the abolition of the Prosecutors' Office in October next year, it has been revealed that less than 1% of prosecutors wish to work at the SCIA.
According to a survey conducted by the Prosecutorial System Reform Task Force of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office from November 5 to 13, 77% of 910 prosecutors chose to work at the Public Prosecution Office, while only 0.8% (7 prosecutors) expressed their intention to work at the SCIA. 18.2% responded that they had not yet decided. Among all 5,737 members of the prosecution organization, including non-prosecutorial positions, 59.2% preferred the Public Prosecution Office, while 6.1% wished to work at the SCIA.
Under the amended Government Organization Act, the Prosecutors' Office will be abolished as of October 2 next year. After that, the Public Prosecution Office will handle indictments, while the SCIA will be responsible for investigations. With only ten months left before the launch, the outlook for staffing remains uncertain.
The main reasons prosecutors preferred the Public Prosecution Office were the retention of indictment authority and role (67.4%), maintenance of position and rank (63.5%), and continuity of work (49.6%). The reasons cited for choosing the SCIA were a preference for investigative work (0.7%) and expectations for specialized investigative experience (0.5%), but the number of such responses was extremely low. There were differences by job category: among 153 narcotics investigators, 37.9% chose the SCIA, which was higher than the 26.1% who preferred the Public Prosecution Office.
Despite the separation of investigation and indictment, there was strong consensus on the need for supplementary investigations. A total of 89.2% of respondents said that the right to request supplementary investigations from the police was necessary, and 85.6% said that prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority was also needed. The main reason was to compensate for insufficient investigations by judicial police (81.1%).
Furthermore, 65.7% responded that prosecutors' authority to initiate investigations was necessary. The areas most frequently cited as requiring this authority were crimes committed by officials of investigative agencies (73.4%) and crimes undermining judicial order, such as false accusations and perjury (71.3%). In addition, 87.7% said that the authority to supervise investigations by special judicial police was necessary.
This survey was conducted among all members of the prosecution organization, with a response rate of 44.45%.
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