The top posts at South Korea's prosecution service and national police have sat empty for months even as a revised Criminal Procedure Act stripping prosecutors of investigative powers takes effect next month. The government carried out its second-half reshuffle of senior police posts on the 1st, naming Kim Jong-chul, head of the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency, as the new vice commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency. Kim will serve as acting commissioner general, a post now vacant. It is the third acting arrangement since former Commissioner General Cho Ji-ho was suspended over the martial law crisis in December 2024. The prosecution is in no better shape. Since former Prosecutor General Shim Woo-jung resigned in July last year, the office has passed through acting stints by Supreme Prosecutors' Office deputy chiefs Noh Man-seok and Koo Ja-hyun and is now run by an acting head standing in for an acting head. Some read the arrangement as an attempt to control the prosecution by installing an acting official rather than a prosecutor general, whose fixed term allows independent judgment.
It is not normal for the posts of prosecutor general and police commissioner general — the heads of the core agencies in the country's investigative and judicial system — to remain vacant for 14 and 20 months respectively. Acting leadership can handle routine business but struggles with decisions that carry responsibility. More seriously, disputes over slackening discipline within the police and confusion in oversight have followed one after another in the absence of leadership. Recent examples include the false closing of a missing-person case on Jeju Island and the botched investigation into the Jang Yun-gi case. The government is expected to appoint a new police commissioner general this month, though some observers say the selection could slip further as it becomes entangled with the appointment of a chief for the new Serious Crimes Investigation Agency.
The prosecution is unsettled as well. With the Public Prosecution Office and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency due to launch in October, the service needs a leadership able to take responsibility for decisions on transferring cases, redeploying staff and setting standards for cooperation between investigation and indictment. Instead, the delay in naming a prosecutor general has left departures mounting and morale badly damaged. The Serious Crimes Investigation Agency has fared no better: of 2,376 applicants for special appointments as prosecutors and investigators, 615 withdrew, leaving the agency to recruit an additional 1,100 people, roughly 40% of its authorized headcount.
Prolonged vacancies at the top of the police and the prosecution are not merely a personnel delay. They weigh on public safety and on investigations into crimes that affect everyday life. Having narrowed the field of candidates through this round of senior police appointments, the government should move quickly to name at least the next police commissioner general. It is contradictory to claim reform of investigative agencies for the public's sake while leaving the chain of investigative command unstable. If political calculation delays these appointments any further, the public will ultimately pay the price.
