After the Joint Investigation Group revealed the fraudulent use and misuse of the prosecution’s special activity expenses for Verification of the Prosecution’s Budget for the first time, the Ministry of Justice said it would “reveal the guidelines on the prosecution’s special activity expenses to the National Assembly.”

The Ministry of Justice and the prosecution have not disclosed to the National Assembly or public their guidelines on special activity expenses, which are the criteria for determining the appropriateness of the execution of special activity expenses, as well as the execution details that state where and how the special activity expenses were spent, making excuses such as “confidential investigation might be exposed.” The amount of special activity expenses spent by the prosecution every year is about KRW 8 million.

The Minister of Justice Han Dong Hoon, at the plenary session of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, held at the National Assembly yesterday (Nov 2), said that he had discussed the matter with the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office and that he will release and explain the guidelines on special activity expenses. On the same day, when urged by Kim Young-bae of the Democratic Party, “Unlike other (government) agencies, your guidelines on the special activity expenses are not open to the public. So, please release the information”, Minister Han said, “We have not released the guidelines in the former governments, but I have discussed the matter with the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, and we will release and explain the guidelines at the level of other agencies before the next subcommittee of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee.”

This is the first time the Ministry of Justice officially mentioned that it would release the guidelines on the prosecution’s special activity expenses. If the guidelines are released as scheduled, the National Assembly, which has the right to deliberate on the government’s budget and settlement, will be able to examine and monitor whether the prosecution has been spending its special activity expenses, which are the taxpayers’ money, in accordance with the internal standards.

The Guidelines on Budget Execution, prepared annually by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and notified to all central administrative agencies in accordance with the National Finance Act, also contains the guidelines on the budget execution of special activity expenses. According to the guidelines, government agencies must prepare “their own guidelines that prescribe general matters concerning special activity expenses such as the approval procedure for execution of special activity expenses, method of execution, way of presenting execution evidence, etc.” Accordingly, the head of the Ministry of Justice, an agency responsible for supervising the prosecution, must prepare and implement its own guidelines on the prosecution’s special activity expenses.

Before this, Newstapa requested the Ministry of Justice to release the guidelines on the prosecution’s special activity expenses as soon as the Supreme Court ruled in Apr that information related to the prosecution’s budget for special activity expenses must be released. It was necessary to review the guidelines, which are the criteria for verifying whether the special activity expenses were executed appropriately.

Furthermore, Newstapa reporters at the time thought that the justification for not releasing the guidelines on special activity expenses no longer existed as the Supreme Court ruled that not only the execution details of special activity expenses but also the expenditure evidence must be released. However, the Ministry of Justice informed that they would not release the information on the grounds that it would remarkably disrupt the performance of their duties such as crime prevention and investigation.

Around the same time, Newstapa also requested the National Police Agency, Coast Guard, National Tax Service, and Customs Service, which perform confidential investigations and deal with confidential information, to disclose their guidelines on special activity expenses, and three agencies: the National Police Agency, National Tax Service, and Customs Service, except the Coast Guard, partially released their guidelines.

The Guidelines on Budget Execution, prepared annually by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and notified to all central administrative agencies in accordance with the National Finance Act, also contains the guidelines on the budget execution of special activity expenses. According to the guidelines, government agencies must prepare “their own guidelines that prescribe general matters concerning special activity expenses such as the approval procedure for execution of special activity expenses, method of execution, way of presenting execution evidence, etc.” Accordingly, the head of the Ministry of Justice must prepare its own guidelines on the prosecution’s special activity expenses.

Meanwhile, Minister Han Dong Hoon, when requested by Kim Seung-won from the Democratic Party to submit the details of the use of special activity expenses at the plenary session of the Judiciary Committee on Nov 2, denied the request by saying “As stated in the court ruling, since the special activity expenses are there to be spent for investigations that require confidentiality, disclosing all the information related to the execution of the special activity expenses destroys the nature of it.”

With respect to this, Ha Seung-soo, a lawyer (co-representative of Sedojab and expert adviser of Newstapa), who was the plaintiff in the administrative lawsuit against the prosecution for disclosure of the prosecution’s special activity expenses said: “The fact that the prosecution is about to disclose the guidelines on special activity expenses only now when other government agencies have been disclosing them already, shows how secretive the prosecution has been all this while.”

Ha Seung-soo then pointed out, “The problem is that the Ministry of Justice and the prosecution still disregard the purpose of the court ruling and try to conceal the information related to their budget, which shows that the prosecution never reflects on themselves, and in the end, we’d have no choice but to clarify the truth about the fraudulent use and misuse of tax committed by them in the past even if it means introducing special prosecution.

In Sep, the Joint Investigation Group for Verification of Prosecution’s Budget (“Joint Investigation Group”) including Newstapa, confirmed that the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office had omitted the expenditure evidence of the special activity expenses produced by different divisions of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office when they were releasing the materials related to the execution of special activity expenses in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision. The fact that the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office failed to release the special activity expenses records of the divisions of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, led by high-ranking prosecutors when it disclosed other special activity expense records, was criticized as a deliberate concealment of information. The Joint Investigation Group applied to the court for indirect compulsory performance, urging disclosure of the information concealed by the prosecution related to the special activity expenses of different divisions of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office. (See related article: “Prosecution disregards the court ruling again concealing a large amount of special activity expenses records”)

Through verification and investigation over the past four months, the Joint Investigation Group continuously reported that the special activity expenses, which are appropriated to be used for investigations and information collection that require confidentiality, were used in the wrong places, such as rewards for prosecutors, encouragement money for employees preparing for audit and inspection conducted by the National Assembly, monthly rent for air purifiers installed at prosecutors’ offices, production of photos commemorating prosecutors’ relocation, etc.