Justice Ministry drafts rules to abolish prosecution and create two agencies

South Korea’s Ministry of Justice has opened public comment on a partial revision of the Prosecutors’ Case Affairs Rules that implements the abolition of the prosecution service and the creation of two new agencies. The legislative notice, Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-381, was published in the Official Gazette (관보) No. 21327 of 22 September 2026. Under the plan, the Prosecutors’ Offices are scrapped and replaced by a Public Prosecution Office under the Justice Minister and a Serious Crimes Investigation Agency under the Minister of the Interior and Safety.

The notice states that the revision is a clean-up measure following the amendment of the Government Organization Act (Act No. 21065), which abolishes the prosecution service and creates the two bodies “in order to build a system in which investigative and prosecutorial agencies can check each other.” The two new agencies are established by the Public Prosecution Service Act (Act No. 21490) and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Organisation and Operation Act (Act No. 21491), both promulgated on 24 March 2026 and due to take effect on 2 October 2026. The Criminal Procedure Act was amended by Act No. 21857, promulgated on 4 August 2026 and also effective on 2 October 2026, institutionally separating investigation from prosecution.

Three notices published the same day

The 22 September issue of the gazette carries three Ministry of Justice legislative notices, all open for comment until 29 September 2026:

• Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-381: partial revision of the Prosecutors’ Case Affairs Rules, aligning case-handling rules with the abolition of the prosecution service and the creation of the Public Prosecution Office and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency.
• Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-416: partial revision of the Human Rights Protection Investigation Rules, reflecting the removal of investigation from prosecutors’ duties; it reorganises rules on human-rights protection in the review of warrant applications and in the prosecutor’s newly created fact-finding step before deciding whether to indict.
• Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-417: full revision of the Rules on Prosecutors’ Investigation Direction over Special Judicial Police Officers and Investigation Standards of Special Judicial Police Officers, recasting the prosecutor–special judicial police relationship from investigation direction to mutual cooperation and creating a guidance-and-advice system (Articles 15 to 19), with regular specialist training arranged with the Legal Research and Training Institute (Article 5); the former section “Investigation Direction” becomes “Cooperation, Guidance and Advice.”

How to submit comments

• Online through the National Participation in Legislation Centre (opinion.lawmaking.go.kr), or by post or fax to the Ministry of Justice.
• Notice No. 2026-381: Prosecutors Division, telephone 02-2110-4210, fax 02-2110-0334; Government Complex Gwacheon, 47 Gwanmun-ro, Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province (postcode 13809).
• Notices No. 2026-416 and No. 2026-417: Criminal Planning Division, telephone 02-2110-3545, fax 02-3480-3098.
• Submissions must state support or opposition with reasons, the name of the person or organisation and its representative, address and telephone number.

A wider clean-up of subordinate legislation

The 22 September notices continue a series of alignment measures published in the preceding days. On 14 September 2026 the gazette carried Ministry of Justice Notices No. 2026-380 to No. 2026-390, covering eleven rules including the Prosecutors’ Service Evaluation Rules, the Prosecutors’ Seized Articles Affairs Rules, the Prosecutors’ Seal Administration Rules, the Prosecutors’ Service Rules, the Prosecutors’ Reporting Affairs Rules, the Prosecutors’ Preservation Affairs Rules, the Rules on Inspection and Copying of Case Records, the Prosecutors’ Execution Affairs Rules on Custodial Sentences and the Prosecutors’ Execution Affairs Rules on Pecuniary Penalties. The same issue carried Office for Government Policy Coordination Notice No. 2026-189, revising 126 presidential decrees, and Ministry of the Interior and Safety Notice No. 2026-1172, revising six ministerial ordinances. On 21 September, Office for Government Policy Coordination Notice No. 2026-195 replaced “prosecution” with “Public Prosecution Office” in the terrorism prevention enforcement rules.

The notices matter beyond administrative housekeeping: they rewrite the procedural rules that govern how every case is registered, transferred, reported, preserved and executed, and they take effect at the same moment the prosecution service ceases to exist. For prosecutors, investigators, special judicial police and defendants alike, the documents published this week define how the new split between investigation and prosecution will actually operate from 2 October 2026.

Source: 관보 (Official Gazette of the Republic of Korea), No. 21327, 22 September 2026, Notices (공고) (official reference: Ministry of Justice Notice No. 2026-381).