GOVT TO STRENGTHEN POLICE CONTROL

[Anchor Lead]

The government announced a plan to strengthen its control on the police. Law enforcement officers are protesting the plan which gives the Minister of the Interior and Safety the authority to command the Commissioner General and to appoint and discipline high-ranking officers.

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The key to the government's plan is the establishment of a separate support body within the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to allow the Minister to directly oversee police activities. The Minister of the Interior and Safety was already endowed with that authority by law but the latest plan aims to set up an organization that can actually support that duty of the Minister.

[Soundbite] Hwang Jeong-geun(Committee on Police System Improvement, Interior Ministry) : "Until now the Interior Ministry received help from the Nat’l Police Agency and its security administrators, but now the Ministry can directly exercise its rights."

Furthermore, the Minister is authorized to “command” the Commissioner General when establishing key policies inside the police organization. The plan even proposes a way to form within the Ministry a nomination committee for high-ranking police officers. The Minister stands to have the right to demand disciplinary actions on the Commissioner General as well. An advisory committee on the police system improvement led by the Vice Minister of the Interior and Safety is to make recommendations.

[Soundbite] Han Chang-seob(Vice Minister of the Interior and Safety) : "The police have a lot of authority and responsibility now, so a gov’t organization should have a democratic oversight and operation plan for it."

Commissioner General Kim Chang-yong immediately convened a meeting of metropolitan and provincial police chiefs and released an official statement that claimed this plan would harm the rule of law, which is the foundation of state organizations and the Constitution. It is reported that local police chiefs at the two-hour meeting grew quite indignant, even demanding the impeachment of the Minister of the Interior and Safety.

[Soundbite] "Halt the plan! Halt the plan!"

Lower-ranking officers also collectively protested the plan.

[Soundbite] Yeo Ik-hwan(Workplace Council, Seoul Metropolitan Police) : "It will undermine political neutrality and even the independence of an investigative body."

The police demanded the Ministry establish a society-wide council and gather opinions. There was also a call for control by citizens and society rather than administrative control.