South Korea to abolish prosecution, create public prosecution and serious crime agencies

The Office for Government Policy Coordination (국무조정실) published a legislative notice on 14 September 2026 announcing a draft presidential decree that amends 126 laws in a single batch to align subordinate regulations with the abolition of the Prosecution Service (검찰청) and the creation of the Public Prosecution Office (공소청) and the Serious Crime Investigation Agency (중대범죄수사청). The notice, issued as 국무조정실공고 제2026-189호 in the Official Gazette (관보) No. 21321, opens a public comment period running until 18 September 2026.

The reform is the administrative-organisation foundation for a criminal-justice system in which investigation and prosecution are institutionally separated. The Public Prosecution Office Act (법률 제21490호, promulgated 24 March 2026) and the Act on the Establishment and Operation of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency (법률 제21491호, promulgated 24 March 2026) were enacted, and the Criminal Procedure Act was amended (법률 제21857호, promulgated 4 August 2026); all three take effect on 2 October 2026.

Scope of the omnibus decree

The draft decree is designed to clean up the legal framework left behind by the dissolution of the prosecution service. Its main elements are:

• Renaming and updating references to the former prosecution service and its local offices (지방검찰청 → 지방공소청) across the affected decrees.
• Merging the prosecution and narcotics-investigation civil-service series into a single criminal-justice civil-service series (형사법무직렬).
• Introducing a special-duty allowance for investigators of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency and revising related personnel statutes.
• Adjusting the remaining presidential decrees to reflect the changes introduced by the new statutes.

New institutional architecture

Under the reform, the Public Prosecution Office is placed under the Minister of Justice (법무부장관), while the Serious Crime Investigation Agency is placed under the Minister of the Interior and Safety (행정안전부장관). The stated purpose is to build a system of mutual checks between the investigative and prosecutorial bodies, ending the prosecution’s former investigative role.

Public comment and contact

Interested agencies, organisations and individuals may submit opinions by 18 September 2026 through the integrated legislative-notice system (국민참여입법센터) at opinion.lawmaking.go.kr, or by post, e-mail or fax to the Prosecution Reform Task Force (검찰개혁추진단) of the Office for Government Policy Coordination. Details are available from the task force’s legislative support division (tel. 02-2100-2236).

The same gazette issue carries four related notices from the Ministry of Justice — 법무부공고 제2026-393호 through 제2026-399호 — amending the rules on supervision of persons released on deferred prosecution, the Security Surveillance Act enforcement rules, the election-crime reward rules, and the enforcement rules of the Act on Execution of Sentences and Treatment of Detainees, all of which likewise replace prosecution-era terminology with the new public-prosecution names.

For citizens and legal professionals, the decree signals the final administrative step before the new two-track criminal-justice system takes effect on 2 October 2026, replacing the prosecution’s investigative powers with a dedicated serious-crime agency while confining the renamed public prosecution office to the prosecution and maintenance of charges.

Source: 관보 (Official Gazette of the Republic of Korea), No. 21321 (별권1권), 14 September 2026, Section I (official reference: 국무조정실공고 제2026-189호).