Prosecution Issues <Abstract>
Sunwoo, Young (Senior prosecutor),
Republic of Korea
All the prosecutors well educated and hard trained are performing their duty of investigation, disposition, sentence execution supervision legally and fairly. Their status is provided in the Constitution, the Criminal Procedure Code and other related laws. Prosecutor is playing a key role in investigation of offence with the assistance of police. Until now well-organized man-power and tactics have been employed to cope with more serious kinds of crime such as corruption, violence and drugs. But from now on, facing new millennium, it is necessary to build up prosecution force in a new shape to meet the goals which are suggested by the people. It is well known that prosecutors would face many new and complex sorts of crime phenomena. Therefore it is time that prosecution must address a matter of specialization in personnel and organization.
Prosecutors are allowed discretionary power, which may be wider than other countries. However, they ought to exercise the discretionary power judicially. It seems that they have done the duty well in pursuit of justice so far, but increasing commercialism of the press and prejudice of the people often cause much trouble to the prosecution service. Besides recent suggestions to put some restriction to the discretion needs to be studied intensively in the legal circles.
The legal system is so much diverse in Asia. The differences in the criminal justice system make mutual cooperation so difficult that each state needs to devise effective measures to contribute toward substantial relationship between the ACPF states. In this context, it is high time for the ACPF member states to organize the international association of prosecutors.