행정안전부 경찰국설치에 대한 논의

Abstract

The police recognize that the most important duty is to protect the people's lives, bodies and property. In addition, the police fulfill their given duties as volunteer police who provide public services to the people by stipulating the duties of the police through the National Police Organization and Operation Act and the Police Officer Duty Execution Act. However, it is not an exaggeration that in the past, the police organizaion was not the role of volunteer police that protected the human rights of the people and provided public services, but a national institution that infringed on the human rights, reigned over the people while only obeying the government's instructions and orders. Nevertheless, the police have come to recognize that the most important duty is to protect the people’s lives, bodies, and property by themselves over the course of time. However, the police are merely assistants in the investigation under the direction and supervision of the prosecution even though most cases are handled by the police. In particular, the prosecution are the head of the investigation, which directs and supervises the police, and is subject of the right to prosecute as well as to request a warrant. The prosecution have formed a top-down relationship with the police through certain roles and functions in the overall criminal justice process. The subordinate relationship of the police to the prosecution has raised the need to distribute the power of the prosecution in the fact that the police are responsible for most of the criminal cases, and the Criminal Procedure Act, the Prosecutor's Office Act and related regulations were revised through persistent efforts of the police. This revision of the law has resulted in the provision of the police's primary right to terminate investigations and even the anticommunist work that the National Intelligence Service was in charge of. Therefore, the police have become the most powerful state agency since it established, due to be given the authority to initiate investigations, to end the primary investigation, and to perform anticommunist duties after gaining the right to initiate investigations with the revision of the Criminal Procedure Act in 2007. The powerful authority that the police have been given now require checks and controls. Once the authority is concentrated in one institution, it may be resulted in abusing it. To solve this problem, the establishment of police department under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety(hereinafter referred to as MOIS) is required. Through the establishment of police department, the police will be under check and control to ensure that the power of the police is legally implemented. There are also negative arguments regarding the establishment of police department, such as whether police department can function as a practical check and control, and whether the establishment of police department is possible because the term 'public security' is not specified in the legal regulations of MOIS organizaion. Therefore, this study aims to assert the necessity of establishing police department under MOIS by examining the history of modern police and current legal regulations, furthermore, to suggest coming policy measures, while recognizing negative arguments about establishing of police department.