| Supreme Prosecutors' Office of the Republic of Korea | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 검찰청 |
| Hanja | 檢察廳 |
| Revised Romanization | Geomchalcheong |
| McCune–Reischauer | K'ŏmch'alch'ŏng |
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office of the Republic of Korea(SPO) is a governmental prosecutor organization in South Korea and is run under the Ministry of Justice. As a national representative of prosecutors it works with the Supreme Court of South Korea and below. It is often paired as the equivalent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United State of America.
Contents |
It consists of:
Since the latter half of the year 2010, the ruling political party in South Korea, the Grand National Party, has an uneasy stance with the budget issues and eventually generated severe disputes relating to corruptions and it contributed to criticisms against the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.[1]
The future prosecutor general, Han Sang-dae (한상대) is under investigation for his two incidents of false address registration and his participation of draft-dodging.[2]
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office is alleged for hypocritical actions that it poorly mismanaged the investigation of the illegal political-level inspections towards civilian institutions in 2010, however restricted an episode of MBC PD Note about this incident.[3]
The SPO under the Lee Myung-bak government has right-wing political characteristics. There was a series of allegations of sabotages against the current non-partisan mayor, Park Won-soon, by the SPO before the October 2011 election.[4] Politicians who had supported former president Roh Moo-hyun also supported Park Won-soon under a unified intention to oppose the current SPO.[5] The SPO's investigations against Han Myeong-sook has led to more controversy as the Seoul High Court has found her innocent twice in the row.[6] However, the SPO has immediately appealed the decision, citing 11 different counts of evidence. Amongst them were direct statements by Han man-ho that he paid her 900,000,000 won in illegal fund money, Han Myeong-sook's siblings usage 100,000,000 won checks, and 240,000,000 won in Mrs. Han's bank account that had a 'suspicious trail'. The SPO alleges that Han Myeong-sook's assistant was taking the fall to cover for her illegal activities. [7]
There was an incident where a university instructor, Park Jeong-su, vandalized a G-20 promotional poster by drawing a rat before the 2010 G-20 Seoul summit. His prosecution by the SPO has exposed concerns that the SPO is politically leaned to serve the Lee Myung-bak government.
Park Hye-ryeon (백혜련), the female district attorney of the Daegu District Public Prosecutor's Office, voluntarily resigned on November 21st, 2011 as the SPO cannot officially maintain its political neutrality under the Lee Myung-bak government.[8]
The former chief secretary to late President Roh Mu-hyun, Moon Jae-in suggested that the SPO's resistance against reformations during the previous Participation Government, in which it also succeeded as the spearhead of the right-wing Lee Myung-bak government, eventually contributed to the unjust investigations against Roh in 2009.[9]
On October 26th, 2011, the Seoul Central District Court appealed against the SPO for continuing an abusive investigation of a child sex abuse case; demanded the government to compensate the family members of the case in question.[10]
The 47.1% of South Koreans surveyed in 2009 didn't think positively of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and the credibility was scored low at 4 out of 10.[11]