Lee cautions against ‘burning down the house’ in prosecution overhaul

President Lee Jae Myung on Monday warned that prosecution reform should be carried out with precision, cautioning against attempts that “burn down the house to get rid of bedbugs,” in remarks widely seen as directed at hard-line lawmakers within the ruling Democratic Party of Korea.

“To solve a problem, one must accurately identify its cause and clearly distinguish what should and should not be addressed,” Lee wrote in a post on X.

“In carrying out necessary reforms, caution is needed to avoid burning down the house to get rid of bedbugs by criticizing the whole and depicting everyone as targets of the reform,” he said, invoking a Korean proverb that warns against excessive measures that cause greater harm than the original problem.

Lee added that reform efforts should focus on removing specific problems and holding responsible individuals accountable, while minimizing harm to the broader organization.

“Problems should be eliminated, and those responsible should be held strictly accountable, but we must minimize situations in which the many members who are not involved lose motivation or are unnecessarily hurt,” Lee wrote.

“Whether it is prosecution reform, labor and economic reform, media reform or judicial reform, that is how I think reforms should be carried out,” he added.

Lee’s remarks appear aimed at hard-liners in the ruling party who have pushed for a broader overhaul of the prosecution system.

The debate centers on government plans to establish two new agencies -- an agency for investigating serious crimes and another that holds the power to indict -- as part of efforts to separate investigative and prosecutorial powers. While the government says prosecutors may need limited supplementary investigative authority to review police probes and pursue prosecutions, hard-line ruling party lawmakers argue prosecutors should retain no direct investigative powers.

Disagreements over the scope of those powers and other institutional changes have continued to fuel tensions between the presidential office and some ruling party lawmakers over the direction of prosecution reform.