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President Moon Jae-in gavels to mark the start of the final Cabinet meeting of his term on May 3. (pool photo)

In the final Cabinet meeting of his term, President Moon Jae-in promulgated two bills that will separate the prosecution services’ powers of indictment and investigation.

A National Assembly plenary session took place at 10 am Tuesday to vote on the revision to the Criminal Procedure Act. This followed Saturday’s passage of the revision to the Prosecutors’ Office Act, the other half of the prosecution reform legislation.

Later in the day, Moon presided over a Cabinet meeting to promulgate the two bills, officially making them law.

The promulgation of the bills marks the completion of the Democratic Party’s bid to reduce and ultimately remove the prosecution service’s powers of investigation.

The revised Prosecutors’ Office Act will reduce the prosecution's investigative powers to only two crime fields, corruption and economic crimes, from the current six starting in September. The prosecution will be able to investigate election-related crimes only until the end of this year.

The amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act calls for limiting the scope of the prosecution's supplementary investigations.

By Song Chae Kyung-hwa, staff reporter

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