What’s the raison d’être of the CIO?

Kim Jin-wook, the first head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), will retire this Saturday after finishing his three-year term. But he didn’t keep his promise to “turn the CIO into a neutral investigation organization deserving of the public’s trust.” Despite the 20-billion-won ($14.9 million) annual budget for the extraordinary investigation body, the CIO could not draw any guilty verdict for three years. The office requested an arrest warrant on five occasions, but the requests were all rejected by judges.

In a press briefing Tuesday, Kim, a former judge, refuted the media’s criticism of the CIO for “doing nothing” over the past three years. “It will be judged by history,” Kim said. In an utterly disappointing move, he was engrossed in self-rationalization until the last minute despite his shabby scores as head of the agency. He has been condemned for repeatedly negating the raison d’être of the CIO to weaken the mighty investigative power of the prosecution and look into corruption of government officials with no exceptions.

When Kim in 2021 met the head of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, a close aide to President Moon Jae-in, to discuss the top prosecutor’s unauthorized exit ban on a former official of the Park Geun-hye administration, Kim sent his official car to the prosecutor to bring him in. Despite his vow to protect human rights in investigations, Kim’s subordinates looked into all communication records of the opposition and conservative journalists.

In a meeting with the press, Kim lowered his head to express his regret. But he didn’t give a clear explanation on what he regretted. When presiding over a kickoff meeting for 2023 last January, he sang a hymn, for which he later apologized as “it could make [me] look biased toward a certain religion.” That was the first explanation he gave in detail for what he did.

The governing People Power Party (PPP) and the majority Democratic Party (DP) must find an appropriate leader for the CIO to normalize it. In December 2020, the then-ruling DP railroaded a revision to neutralize the opposition’s resistance of candidates for the position. As Kim served as a judge, not a prosecutor, his ability to investigate corruption cases was contested.

The role of Kim’s successor is very important. A recommendation committee has held six meetings so far, but failed to narrow down the candidates to two. If a candidate with no investigative background is appointed as its head again, the CIO will follow in Kim’s footsteps and waste 20 billion won each year for three years. Politicians must first find a talented head of the CIO, but both parties must fix the problems with the CIO Act before it’s too late.