[단독]After adjusting investigative powers of the prosecution and police, ‘appeals and prosecutions against non-transfer to the police’ increased rapidly.

[헤럴드경제DB]

[헤럴드경제=윤호·박준규 기자]After adjusting the investigative authority of the prosecutors and police, the number of objections to the decision not to forward the case to the police and the number of indictments resulting from it was found to have increased rapidly.

According to data obtained by the Herald Economy from the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on the 21st, the number of cases that were not forwarded by the police but raised objections continued to increase to 25,048, 35,492, and 39,348 from 2021 to 2023, and 22,681 in the first half of this year. It reached a point.

Among these, the number of indicted cases also surged from 528 in 2021 to 944 the following year, reaching 1,054 in 2023 and 512 in the first half of this year.

In 2021, there will be an adjustment of the investigative power of the prosecution and police, which will abolish the prosecution’s right to command the police investigation and grant the police the right to terminate the primary investigation, and in 2022, the so-called ‘complete prosecution (complete deprivation of the prosecution’s right to investigate)’, which will drastically reduce the area of ​​direct investigation by the prosecution. There was an adjustment in investigative authority.

A case that was forwarded through an objection after adjusting the investigative authority of the prosecutors and police refers to a case where the police independently determined the case to be not guilty and then did not forward the case, but the person concerned objected and was brought to the prosecutors’ office and indicted. A prosecution official explained, “Immediately after the introduction of the transfer system based on objections in 2021, mainly simple cases were uploaded, but the following year, a large number of legally complex cases that had been piled up were uploaded, and the number of objections and indictments appears to have increased rapidly in 2022.” did it

In addition, according to data received by Representative Yoo Sang-beom’s office from the Ministry of Justice, the rate of prosecutors dismissing arrest warrants requested by the police without requesting them from the court increased from 17.7% in 2019 to 18% in 2020, 22.9% in 2021, 23.2% in 2022, and 2023. It steadily increased to 25%. Even in the case of search and seizure warrants, the rate of prosecutors dismissing police applications showed an increasing trend from 6.4% in 2019 to 10.8% in 2021, 11.3% in 2022, and 11.9% in 2023.

[연합]

A prosecution official said, “Unlike when there is command, there is no communication during the investigation process, so it is possible that the number of objections increased after the police made their own independent judgment in legal terms. “The same goes for the increase in warrant dismissals,” he pointed out. In the case of the police sending a middle school girl to the prosecution on charges of property damage last August for taking down a flyer from an elevator mirror, the prosecution’s position is that if there had been prior communication between the police and the prosecution, as was the case before the adjustment of investigative powers, the case could have been disposed of in accordance with general legal judgment.

When asked whether the prosecution had been too conservative in warrant review after adjusting the investigative powers of the prosecution and police, the response was, “Because there has been no prior communication at all after adjusting the investigative powers of the prosecution and police, we have no choice but to conduct a more rigorous review than before.”

Regarding this, a police official said, “The rate of appeals to the overall decision to not forward the case is decreasing. “It recorded 10.7% in 2022, 10.9% in 2023, and 9.4% as of August 2024.” “This is the rate of appeals), but compared to this, the police’s rate of objections is not high,” he said.

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