The police recommended earlier this week that the prosecution rethink its directive for them to investigate a fraud case, a move that ratcheted up tension between the two over their investigative authority.

On Monday, a senior official at the Namhae Police Station in South Gyeongsang Province made the recommendation to the Jinju branch under the Changwon District Prosecutors’ Office, officials said Wednesday.

This marked the first such case since the modified presidential decree on the criminal investigation procedure, which defines the investigative powers of the two law enforcement agencies, took effect on Jan. 1. Police have argued that the revision inordinately undermines their independence and pride.

A resident in Namhae, surnamed Park, has filed a petition with the prosecution, saying that a financial institution had repeatedly pressured him to pay back 2 million won ($1,775) although he never borrowed any money from it.

The prosecution then turned the petition case into an official complaint and handed it over to the police for investigation on Jan. 12.

The police apparently feel displeased with the directive. The prosecution has customarily passed minor cases such as petitions or minor internal investigations to the police rather than probing them on its own, police sources said.

Police have recently decided not to accept a prosecutorial directive to look into cases of petitions. But they will conduct investigations into officially registered complaints.

Under the modified decree, the police can ask the prosecution to rethink its investigation directive when they believe it lacks legitimacy or can hardly be justified.

“After we finish dealing with petition cases, no records over them remain while records of investigations into official complaints remain (thus they are apparently more rewarding),” a police official told media.

“The police’s official position is that should the prosecution arbitrarily turn a petition case into a complaint case and refer the case to us for investigation, we will recommend that the decision be reconsidered by the prosecution.”


By Song Sang-ho
(sshluck@heraldcorp.com)