Prosecution Creates 250-Page 'Easy Indictment' Sample for People with Disabilities, But Fails to Use It

"Easy-to-Understand Indictment for Persons with Developmental Disabilities"

Supreme Prosecutors' Office Distributed 250-Page Guide Last Year

Ignored in the Field Due to "Workload" Concerns

Defendants with Low Literacy or Intellectual

The "Easy-to-Understand Indictment for People with Developmental Disabilities," distributed by the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office last year, is being largely ignored by local prosecutors’ offices. This stands in stark contrast to the judiciary, which has actually adopted "Easy-Read" verdicts in real trials to guarantee the right of defense for people with disabilities and to improve accessibility to legal documents.

According to the legal community on July 3, the 7th Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Chief Judge Kang Woochan) recently rendered a ruling in favor of a plaintiff with an intellectual disability, who had filed a lawsuit against a district office. Alongside the standard verdict, the court attached a simplified version tailored to the plaintiff’s level of understanding. Instead of difficult legal terminology, the verdict included intuitive sentences and summary illustrations, such as "The plaintiff has won. The district office will pay the litigation costs," and "The judge also found that you have difficulty living a normal social life." This marks the first case following the Supreme Court’s guidelines requiring courts to provide easily understandable verdicts to persons with disabilities and other socially vulnerable populations.

In contrast, the prosecution’s efforts have stalled. In November last year, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office published a 250-page research and development report titled "Easy-to-Understand Indictment for People with Developmental Disabilities." On December 1 of the same year, templates for each offense were distributed to prosecutors’ offices nationwide. Five adults with developmental disabilities (four with intellectual disabilities and one with autism) participated in the review process for the materials.

An example of an easy-to-understand indictment from the material is as follows: "An indictment is a document the prosecutor sends to the court. The prosecutor informs the court, 'This person did something wrong, so please punish them.' The prosecutor believes that Kim Gap-dong committed theft by stealing two watches." (page 37) The material identifies 75 key criminal facts relevant to people with developmental disabilities and specifies detailed ways to express them simply in indictments.

The problem lies in its practical usage. When asked about the actual use of these easy-to-understand indictments, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office stated, "Currently, we guide prosecutors to use the material as a reference according to the specific circumstances and needs of individual cases, but the office does not separately record or manage the number of cases in which it has been used, so it is difficult to provide an answer." On the matter of concrete plans for broader adoption, such as designating pilot offices, the office said, "Further review is needed regarding operational outcomes and actual use in practice, and we plan to comprehensively consider the need for future discussions with the courts." As a result, even after more than six months since distribution, there is no data on the actual use of easy-to-understand indictments in the field.

The main reason for the lack of implementation is cited as the increased "workload" for frontline prosecutors. To use an easy-to-understand indictment, prosecutors must draft both the standard legal document and a simplified version that the defendant can understand. Kwon Naegeon, attorney at Trinity Law Firm, who led the publication of the material while serving as the Human Rights Planning Officer at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, said, "For prosecutors’ offices that are pressed for time in handling cases, it is realistically difficult to attempt something that would essentially double their work." He added, however, "Without institutional support for actual operation, the purpose of guaranteeing the defendant’s right of defense—the starting point of criminal trials—would inevitably be undermined."

Because of this, defendants with limited literacy or intellectual disabilities often do not understand the charges against them or what they did wrong throughout the criminal process, making it difficult to exercise their right of defense. According to data released by Assemblywoman Lee Jooyoung of the Reform Party at the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee's audit, as of September 2025, there were 7,879 cases involving people with developmental disabilities as suspects or victims.

In contrast, during the same period, only 389 cases (about 4.9%) received assistance through the Korea Disabled People’s Development Institute (Developmental Disabilities Support Center). As of September 2025, the rate at which suspects with developmental disabilities were referred to the prosecution without sufficient support was 98.4%. This is a stark contrast to the overall suspect referral rate of 23.8%. There are growing calls for the urgent implementation of effective support systems in the field, such as the simplification of judicial terminology.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.