The fact-finding team of the Prosecutorial Human Rights Respect Future Committee (Prosecutors Future Committee), formed to identify allegations of prosecutorial power abuse and human rights violations, applied to the Supreme Court for the trial records in the case of Kim Yong, a close aide to President Lee Jae Myung and former deputy head of the Institute for Democracy, but was refused.

According to Kyunghyang Shinmun reporting on the 9th, the Supreme Court First Division (presiding Justice Seo Kyung-hwan) the day before denied the request from the fact-finding team for cooperation in viewing·copying the trial records in the case against former deputy head Kim for violating the Political Funds Act. The Supreme Court did not specify the grounds for denial, but under the Criminal Procedure Act, it appears to be because a third party, rather than the defendant·defense counsel·family, cannot view or copy documents and evidence in a case that is on trial.

In a notice that day, the fact-finding team said it “plans to reapply to the Supreme Court by specifically substantiating the reasons that viewing·copying is necessary,” and argued that “to carry out related duties, the team needs to obtain and review prosecution evidence records currently filed with the court.”

The team explained that, “under guidelines related to operation of the team from the Supreme Prosecutors Office, it is securing investigation and trial records for seven cases selected as subjects of inquiry via the Supreme Prosecutors Office,” and that “for the case of former deputy head Kim currently on trial at the Supreme Court, it also applied via the Supreme Prosecutors Office to the Supreme Court for record viewing·copying.”

The fact-finding team is investigating whether there was abuse of prosecutorial power in the case of former deputy head Kim and in cases for which President Lee Jae Myung is on trial, including the Ssangbangwool remittances to North Korea and the Daejang-dong·Wirye development corruption cases. Former deputy head Kim received a five-year prison sentence in the 1·2 trial instances on charges of receiving illicit political funds and bribes worth hundreds of millions of won from private Daejang-dong developers, and is now awaiting only the Supreme Court ruling.

Current and former prosecutors argue that the fact-finding team operates without a legal basis and affects trials. Former Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office chief Song Kyung-ho and former Suwon District Prosecutors Office chiefs Hong Seung-uk·Kim Yu-cheol·Shin Bong-su said in a joint statement the previous day that “the team questioning persons who have already testified or are scheduled to testify in court and those responsible for maintaining the prosecution, and its separate review of trial materials, is an act that directly violates the constitutional principle of separation of powers.”

Prosecutor Kim Min-a of the Seoul High Prosecutors Office also wrote on the 7th on the prosecution internal network that “no matter how closely one examines the relevant rules and investigation guidelines, handing over the entire record of a case that is still on trial appears inappropriate and even seems unlawful.”