President Lee Jae-myung said on the 18th that "the concern is the police growing too powerful" as South Korea pushes ahead with prosecution reform. He said that because police, the military and prosecutors have historically been abused as instruments of dictatorship, any concentration of power must be guarded against.
Speaking at a news conference at the presidential office in Seoul, Lee said: "Just as an insurrection through a self-coup happened even in modern times, there is no telling which state institutions could be abused as instruments of dictatorship in the future." He added: "We must structurally block that possibility as much as possible. Power has no choice but to be subject to mutual checks."
On the direction of prosecution reform, he stressed that "what really matters is the original purpose and function that an institution was given." Lee said: "In other words, the most important thing is to make sure they can properly carry out their core functions of protecting the human rights of the people, protecting victims and maintaining social order." He added: "We must not forget this ultimate goal in the course of reform," and said officials "must maintain a sense of balance so that side effects can be minimized."
Responding to criticism in some quarters that the presidential office is unsympathetic to prosecution reform, Lee countered that "I am one of the people who suffered the most from the misdeeds of the prosecution." He said: "There is nothing for me to gain from them," adding, "I ask you once again to set aside your suspicions that I am trying to do something by taking the side of the prosecution, or that reform is backsliding."
