Prosecution Service Agency to Cut Staff… Cases per Prosecutor Rise by 43%

Number of Prosecutors Down 13% Over Four Years
Ministry of Justice: "Current Staffing Is the Minimum"
Concerns Over Increased Burden on Victims

Following the so-called "Prosecution Reform" that limited the investigative authority of prosecutors ("Geomsu Wanbak"), the number of prosecutors has decreased, but the volume of cases and records handled by each prosecutor has actually increased. The workload on prosecutors continues to grow.

According to data obtained by The Law Times, the number of active prosecutors will drop from 1,889 in 2021 to 1,645 in 2025, representing a 12.9% decrease. However, as the number of cases has surged, the average number of cases received per prosecutor annually has increased by 43.4%, from 820 in 2021 to 1,176 in 2025.

The Law Times.

Under these circumstances, the number of annual cases processed per prosecutor—either prosecution or non-prosecution dispositions—increased by 19.8% over four years, from 599.8 cases in 2021 to 718.5 in 2025.

During the same period, the average annual number of pages in case records handled per prosecutor rose by 50.1%, from 85,280 pages to 127,987 pages. Across all prosecutors, total case records increased by approximately 49.44 million pages, from 161,094,253 pages to 210,538,360 pages.

While the scope of direct investigations by prosecutors has been reduced due to the adjustment of investigative powers between the police and prosecution, the judicial oversight function—determining whether to prosecute cases transferred from police—has significantly expanded. In addition, following the restructuring of the investigation system, the number of records prosecutors must review has also increased due to supplementary investigations. As a result, the caseload and the burden of legal analysis per prosecutor continue to mount.

In this context, the government and the ruling party are moving forward with additional reductions in the number of prosecutors under the proposed Prosecution Service Agency, which is under the Ministry of Justice. According to the current organizational plan, the official number of prosecutors is set at 2,292, but only 80–85% of this workforce will be in place when the agency is launched.

The Ministry of Justice believes that the staffing level in the current plan is the minimum necessary for the operation of the Prosecution Service Agency. If the number of prosecutors decreases any further, given that the reduced workforce has already been coping with increasing workloads, this may lead not only to case backlogs but also to subpar handling of cases.

An official at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office noted, "Even if the prosecutors’ offices are abolished, responsibilities such as case dispositions, warrant reviews, indictment maintenance, and fact-verification systems will still fall under the jurisdiction of the Prosecution Service Agency. If the processing capacity of the criminal justice system declines, the resulting burden would ultimately fall on victims."

Woobin, The Law Times reporter

※This article is based on content supplied by Law Times.

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