Interior Minister Lee Sang-min outlines plan to control police

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Interior Minister Lee Sang-min outlines plan to control police

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min announces a plan to establish a police oversight bureau within his ministry at the government complex in Jongno District, central Seoul on Monday. [NEWS1]

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min announces a plan to establish a police oversight bureau within his ministry at the government complex in Jongno District, central Seoul on Monday. [NEWS1]

 
The Interior Ministry announced a plan to create a new police bureau to strengthen its oversight over the National Police Agency on Monday, the same day that Commissioner General Kim Chang-yong offered to resign over blunders committed by the agency.
 
Speaking at the government complex in Jongno District, central Seoul on Monday, Interior Minister Lee Sang-min said his ministry would create a bureau charged with police oversight, mainly to prevent the police agency from becoming too powerful in the aftermath of the weakening of the state prosecution service. 
 
“There are growing public concerns about the expansion in police powers,” Lee said. He described his decision to set up a bureau to oversee the police agency the only alternative to “doing nothing.”
 
Investigative authority by the National Police Agency has expanded as the National Assembly weakened the prosecution.
 
Police assumed the right to conduct investigations into most categories of crimes after the Criminal Procedure Act and the Prosecutors’ Office Act were revised in January 2020, and are set to take over the state prosecution service’s remaining investigative powers in September according to controversial laws passed just before former President Moon Jae-in left office in early May.
 
If established, the new police affairs bureau will mark the return of direct Interior Ministry control of police after 31 years.
 
The National Police Agency was reconstituted as an organization outside the ministry in 1991 as part of efforts to ensure its independence and neutrality.
 
According to the plan, which follows a proposal set out by the ministry’s reform advisory committee last week, the ministry will assert the right to recommend candidates for top police positions, while the interior minister would gain the right to demand disciplinary measures for the chief of the National Police Agency and other senior police officials.
 
According to an Interior Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity to the JoongAng Ilbo, no new legislation is needed to establish a bureau overseeing the police agency.
 
The official cited article 34 of the Government Organization Act, which places the National Police Agency under the oversight of the interior minister “so that he may assume responsibility for public safety.”
 
Interior Minister Lee said that he spoke on the phone with Police Commissioner General Kim Chang-yong for 90 minutes regarding the plan, and that Kim agreed “with the vast majority of what was proposed.”
 
Police Commissioner General Kim Chang-yong expresses his intention to resign over blunders by the National Police Agency and internal unrest over the Interior Ministry's oversight plan at a press conference at the agency's headquarters in Seodaemun District, central Seoul on Monday. [NEWS1]

Police Commissioner General Kim Chang-yong expresses his intention to resign over blunders by the National Police Agency and internal unrest over the Interior Ministry's oversight plan at a press conference at the agency's headquarters in Seodaemun District, central Seoul on Monday. [NEWS1]

 
Kim offered to resign Monday after President Yoon Suk-yeol blasted the police agency over a series of mistakes regarding upcoming personnel appointments and internal unrest over the interior ministry’s plan.
 
The agency released the names of new senior superintendents general a week earlier than the presidential office's scheduled announcement, only to change seven of the selections two hours later. Yoon publicly rebuked police in comments to reporters on Thursday, calling the premature announcement and abrupt changes “a total lapse in state discipline or an absurd mistake that cannot be made by public officials.”
 
A presidential official said Monday that Yoon will deal with Kim's resignation offer “in accordance with due procedures,” suggesting the offer would not be immediately accepted.
 
The commissioner general's resignation offer has also been interpreted as a protest of the Interior Ministry's plan, which has fanned opposition among police officers and the liberal Democratic Party.
 
Senior and retired police officers held up a banner calling for “police independence” during a news conference held outside the government complex at the same time that the interior minister announced the plan to set up the new bureau.
 

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
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