South Korea
Prosecution in South Korea
A prosecution under the Ministry of Justice, headed by the Prosecutor General — reduced in investigative power by a 2020–2021 reform, and set to be abolished and split by an enacted 2025 restructuring.
Facts on this page were checked against their sources on .
Prosecution is conducted by the Prosecution Service (검찰청), an external agency of the Ministry of Justice, headed by the Prosecutor General (검찰총장), who "handles all affairs and directs all staff members of the Prosecutors' Offices". It is structured as one Supreme Prosecutors' Office, six High Prosecutors' Offices, eighteen District Prosecutors' Offices and forty-two branch offices. It is not part of the judiciary and is not constitutionally independent.
The same idea, explained generally
- What does a prosecutor do?
A prosecutor decides whether a criminal case should be brought, on what charges, and presents it in court. This guide explains the tests applied, the duties owed, and how the role differs between systems.
- Why do justice systems need oversight?
Justice institutions hold coercive powers, often operate out of public view, and make decisions that are hard to reverse. This guide explains the oversight mechanisms built to detect and correct errors, and their limits.
Sources
Sources
Supreme Prosecutors' Office of the Republic of Korea — official site (English)
Supreme Prosecutors' Office (검찰청, Republic of Korea) · Government publication · link verified 2026-07-27
The Prosecution Service's own English site, read directly. Supports that the Prosecutor General (검찰총장, Geomchal Chongjang) "handles all affairs and directs all staff members of the Prosecutors' Offices", and the structure of "1 Supreme Prosecutors' Office, 6 High Prosecutors' Offices, 18 District Prosecutors' Offices and 42 Branch Prosecutors' Offices". The placement of the service under the Ministry of Justice is established from the Government Organization Act / Prosecutors' Office Act (this page does not itself state it).
Korea Herald — Cabinet approves bill to dismantle the Prosecution Service by October 2026
The Korea Herald · Journalism · 2025-09-30 · link verified 2026-07-27
Korea Herald reporting, read directly and independently re-fetched in verification, on the enacted 2025 restructuring of the prosecution. Cited, by attribution and with dates, that the Cabinet approved on 30 September 2025 an amendment to the Government Organization Act splitting the Prosecution Service's powers into an investigative agency under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and a separate indictment office within the Ministry of Justice; that the Supreme Prosecutors' Office would be abolished on 1 October 2026 after a one-year grace period, with the new agencies beginning the following day; and that this ends the service "some 78 years after its establishment". Used to record the reform neutrally as enacted-but-not-yet-effective; the primary gazette and implementing statutes were not fetchable (the Library of Congress Global Legal Monitor page was bot-walled).