Next year’s budget for the prosecution’s special activity expenses has been reduced by 10%to KRW 7.2 billion after the verification reports of the Joint Investigation Group forVerification of Prosecution’s Budget consisting of six independent media and publicbroadcasting companies including Newstapa and three civil organizations have disclosed thefraudulent uses and misuses of the prosecution’s budget for the first time.

The National Assembly held a plenary session today (Dec 21) and voted on the 2024 budgetincluding KRW 7.2 billion earmarked for the prosecution’s special activity expenses. Theprosecution’s special activity expenses budget is down by 10% from KRW 8 billion allocatedin 2023.

The opposition Democratic Party organized a special activity expenses task force intendingto cut all the amount of the special activity expenses that the prosecution has not proven itsnecessity and demanded that the prosecution proves that the special activity expenses arebeing executed in accordance with the purpose of the budget, such as confidentialinvestigations. The party requested the prosecution to submit to the National Assembly theevidence materials related to the reason and purpose of the special activity expenses, butthe request was denied.

In response, the prosecution and the Ministry of Justice requested KRW 8 billion, which isthe same amount as this year’s (2023) budget, to be earmarked next year for theprosecution’s budget for special activity expenses saying that a reduction in the budget forspecial activity expenses would disrupt their performance in collecting criminal informationrelated to drug investigations for example.

Ha Seung-soo, a co-representative of Sedojab, a member of the Joint Investigation Groupfor Verification of Prosecution’s Budget, said, “It’s better than not being cut at all, but giventhe alleged illegal acts and the fraudulent uses and misuses of the budget revealed so far,the prosecution’s special activity expenses should have been immediately abolished ordrastically cut.”

Ha Seung-soo then criticized, “The fact that the National Assembly reduced only 10% of thebudget is a very wrong decision abandoning the National Assembly’s budget deliberationand voting rights entrusted by the sovereign when the prosecution has failed to provide anyevidence that the special activity expenses are being spent according to the purpose of thebudget.

Newstapa and three civil organizations were able to obtain the expenditure evidence of theprosecution’s budget for special activity expenses for the first time by winning theadministrative lawsuit for disclosure of information against the “Supreme Prosecutors’” Officeand the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in Apr 2023 after three years and fivemonths. In Jul 2023, Newstapa, in cooperation with six independent media and publicbroadcasting companies in Korea, established the Joint Investigation Group to expand thebudget verification to 67 district prosecutors’ offices nationwide.

The Joint Investigation Group, through the collaborative investigation over the past sevenmonths, has disclosed the extralegal and illegal operation system of the prosecution’sspecial activity expenses, including identifying the existence of “Prosecutor General’s shareof special activity expenses” and has reported dozens of cases in which special activityexpenses have been used as “extra money in the pouch” by some prosecutors.