[Reporter’s Notebook] Death Penalty Sought for Yoon Marks the End of the Special Investigation Prosecutors’ Era

"There is Yoon's original sin, isn't there?"

This phrase, which makes prosecutors in Seocho-dong "ip-kkuk-dat" (a situation where they are forced to keep their mouths tightly shut), carries significant weight. With just this one remark, prosecutors who would otherwise complain that "a police dictatorship is coming" or "it will become a paradise for criminals" fall silent. One chief prosecutor even confessed, "At that time, the president and the prosecution seemed too much like one body. Now, even if we are attacked with the 'pro-Yoon frame,' we cannot fight back by saying 'we are different.' The special investigation prosecutors contributed to this."

The Yoon Suk-yeol administration's cabinet was so dominated by prosecutors that it was called a case of prosecutorial inbreeding. This is why the recent call for the death penalty for former President Yoon is being interpreted as the failure of the "prosecutors' republic." Close associates of President Yoon, such as former Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sangmin and People Power Party lawmaker Kwon Seongdong, who are all connected through prosecutor networks, failed to prevent the absurd martial law. The public no longer wants a prosecution that produces figures like former President Yoon, nor do they want prosecutors with the same qualities as Yoon Suk-yeol.

Now, how should the prosecution define its own identity? One deputy chief prosecutor spoke of the "special investigation department as the nation's downfall" theory. He reflected, "Instead of elevating the special investigation department and reflecting the number of investigative cases in evaluations and personnel decisions, we should have focused on checking whether police investigations were conducted according to law and procedure, and whether there were any human rights violations." This is a valid point. In fact, the original purpose of the prosecution was not investigation itself, but judicial oversight over the police.

However, when prosecutors are asked about their identity as human rights advocates, they tilt their heads in confusion. This is due to an organizational culture that has long considered special investigations as its core. In most prosecutor's offices, the human rights officer is treated as a minor position, often held concurrently with the public relations officer. That era has ended. The public no longer wants all-powerful prosecutors who set targets for indictment and pursue investigations as if on a hunt.

The new prosecution reform bill has granted the Ministry of the Interior and Safety authority over the investigation and command of nine major crimes. The Ministry has become an absolute power overseeing both public security and investigations. Paradoxically, this highlights the importance of the prosecution's judicial oversight function. What is needed now is not another powerful investigative agency, but a control mechanism to keep this enormous power in check. The only entity capable of fulfilling this role is the prosecution itself.

The answer becomes even clearer when recalling the prosecution's historically shining moments. The exposure of the Park Jongcheol torture and death case remains a historical precedent. The prosecution did not thrive by wielding the sword, but by establishing its identity as a guardian of human rights and as an institution of judicial oversight.

If the prosecution is to establish a new identity, the direction is clear. It is not about creating a second prosecution office by sending prosecutors in the form of judicial investigators to the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency. It is about focusing on the role of judicial oversight over the police, centering on the authority to receive all case files and to request supplementary investigations. The prosecution must put down the sword of direct investigation and return to being the brake of control and oversight. Only then can the prosecution escape from Yoon's original sin.