The Police Investigation Reform Committee for Restoring Public Trust announced 12 recommendations on Oct. 6 aimed at strengthening investigative fairness and capability.
To raise the police force's investigative expertise, the committee recommended hiring at least 100 holders of lawyer qualifications each year for the next five years — more than 500 in total — as police officers and deploying them to investigative units. It said each police station also needs to add at least two to four legal experts.
The recommendations include internal controls to bolster the independence and fairness of investigations. The committee called for banning officers who are not the case handler or commander from inquiring about or soliciting favors in ongoing cases, and requiring officers who receive such inquiries to report them immediately to inspection and human rights officers, regardless of whether they actually provided information.
It recommended disciplinary action for failing to comply with the reporting duty, along with tougher sanctions against officers who make such inquiries.
Inquiries from former police officers, or from law firms and attorneys' offices that have not filed a notice of representation, would also be subject to mandatory reporting.
The committee also called for documenting the chain of investigative command. It recommended that supervisors issue investigative instructions as electronic documents through the Korea Information System of Criminal Justice Services (KICS) to clarify the content of instructions and where responsibility lies.
When instructions are given verbally or by phone because of an emergency or a system failure, an electronic document must be delivered the following day or as soon as the system failure is resolved.
In cases involving family members of police officers, the committee recommended that a different police agency handle the investigation, and that for serious crimes, authorities consider revising relevant laws so that another body, such as a serious crimes investigation agency, takes charge.
It also proposed letting complainants and accusers check the status of their cases online, and assigning the intake and registration of cases and evidence exclusively to general administrative civil servants.
The recommendations also call for writing the legal basis for the Police Investigation Deliberation Committee into law and composing the panel entirely of external members.
In addition, the committee called for regularizing official meetings with crime victims' groups at least twice a year and conducting periodic checks on compliance with requests for supplementary investigation.
Some critics noted, however, that certain recommendations — such as the ban on case inquiries — merely restate measures the police have already implemented or decided to pursue.
In response, the committee said, "Please understand that they were included in the recommendations to strengthen momentum."
The National Police Agency said it "gravely recognizes public interest in and concern about police investigations amid the overhaul of the criminal justice system," adding that it would actively accept the recommendations and report detailed implementation plans and timelines to the committee.
