A man from the countryside waits his whole life before a door, hoping to enter the Law. A gatekeeper has blocked him, saying he cannot enter now. Years pass, and as the man nears death, the gatekeeper tells him that this door was meant for him alone, and that it will now be closed. This is Franz Kafka's short story "Before the Law."
Interpretations of the work vary, but the dominant reading is that it is a parable about an ordinary person who tries to approach the law, waits endlessly before complex procedures and invisible barriers, and is ultimately shut out.
Chillingly, the state of South Korea's legal system today seems to overlap with Kafka's parable. On the 2nd of this month, the Prosecution Service, which had served for 78 years as one pillar of the criminal justice system, disappeared into history, split into a Public Prosecution Office and a Serious Crimes Investigation Agency. The overhaul has raised concerns that citizens will be left standing before the door of the law. Contrary to the stated aim of separating investigation from indictment to prevent the concentration of power, critics expect that the new structure will fail to check abuses of investigative power such as shoddy investigations or the burial of cases, and that agencies will instead pass cases back and forth and dodge responsibility.
Confusion looks unavoidable, because the top posts at all four of the key ministries and agencies responsible for the criminal justice system are vacant — the justice minister, the prosecutor general who heads the Public Prosecution Office, the head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and the national police commissioner. All four are taking their first steps under acting leadership at precisely the moment when they must steer the abolition of the Prosecution Service and the launch of two new agencies.
The situation in the judiciary is no less bitter. A vacancy on the Supreme Court bench — one justice handles some 4,000 cases a year — has gone unfilled for seven months. For the first time in constitutional history, the president demanded that the chief justice renominate a candidate for the post and refused to submit a confirmation motion to the National Assembly. The chief justice has held to the position that there is no constitutional basis for such a demand and that it cannot be accepted. With the president's appointment process at a standstill and the chief justice unwilling to retreat, the vacancy is dragging on with no end in sight. The burden of delays in final appellate rulings falls on the parties waiting for a swift decision.
For ordinary citizens — the countryman at the door — the reality is harsh. The heavy load of disrupted recovery for victims of botched investigations and of clogged courtrooms lands squarely on people's lives. The very citizens who should be under the protection of the law are being shut out at its threshold. The purpose of reform should be to ensure that the public does not spend a lifetime waiting before that door.
