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Park, Yong Chul --- "The Admissibility of Suspect Interrogation Record in the New Era of Korean Criminal Procedure" [2010] ELECD 255; in Cho, Kuk (ed), "Litigation in Korea" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Litigation in Korea

Editor(s): Cho, Kuk

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848443396

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: The Admissibility of Suspect Interrogation Record in the New Era of Korean Criminal Procedure

Author(s): Park, Yong Chul

Number of pages: 12

Extract:

5. The admissibility of suspect
interrogation record* in the new era of
Korean criminal procedure
Yong Chul Park

I. INTRODUCTION
Since Japan transplanted its German-influenced legal structure in Korea
during the Japanese occupation period of the early 20th Century, Korea has
taken the form of authoritative bureaucracy where public officials hold great
power. Public officials including judges and prosecutors have shared and exer-
cised a vast amount of discretion in terms of enforcing laws.1 Previously as
enforcers of criminal justice, prosecutors had long enjoyed corroborative
kinship with judges; now there is productive tension.2 Oftentimes judges
helped prosecutors to prove their cases.3 Since judges were geared to work as
supporting partners to help and prove prosecutions, there were not exactly
impartial umpires.4 There have been two similar but different sets of evidence
showing judges' mighty power and their kinship with prosecutors in criminal
trials. The first one is the fact that the many aspects of rules of criminal
evidence posit rather in common law status without a lot of necessary details.5
Heavily relying upon judges' discretionary power, it was implicitly noted that
a lot of detailed aspects of the Rules were considered better if they were




* Section 1 of Article 312 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC)
(hyeongsasosongbeop) (Law No. 341, 23 September 1954, last revised 21 December
2007 as Law No. 8730) (KCPA) terms it as `A protocol which contains a statement of
a suspect or of any other person, prepared by a public ...