Discussion of Policy Measures Regarding Granting Police the Right to Request a Warrant

The police were not regarded as an institution that protected the people’s human rights during the Japanese colonial period, the US military government, and the military dictatorship. General people tended to tremble in fear just by hearing the word police officer in these periods. In other words, the police were an object of fear and terror. Because of this recognition of major people, the police not granted any authority in the investigation procedure was an auxiliary organization that assisted the investigation of the prosecutors, despite being clearly stated as an investigative agency along with the prosecution. However, the police organization has made various efforts to change its negative images to a volunteer police that serves the people through quite long periods of time with development of science technology. Those efforts have led to the revision of the Criminal Procedure Act, the prosecutors' Office Act, and the National Intelligence Service Act, and the police that handles most criminal cases is granted considerable authority to perform its role and function. As a result, the police were granted the right to initiate investigations, the right to conclude primary investigations, and the right to conduct espionage activities investigations in the investigation process, and their relationship with the prosecution changed to a mutually cooperative and equal relationship. Ultimately, this can be the result of the abolition of the prosecutor's right to direct investigations. However, in order for the police to fulfill its role as a practical investigative agency, the police must be granted the right to request a warrant. Granting the right to request a warrant to the police should be a prerequisite to quickly investigate criminal cases and ultimately lead to the discovery of the truth and the protection of the people's human rights. However, since the Constitution limits the subject of the right to request a warrant to the prosecutor, it is actually granting the prosecutor the authority exclusively. Because of this, there is a difficulty in revising the Constitution in order to grant the right to request a warrant to the police. Therefore, there is a need to clearly state the subject of the right to request a warrant as the prosecutor and the judicial police officer by revising the Criminal Procedure Act without revising the Constitution. There are some conflict opinions that granting the entire right to request a warrant to the police could result in the abuse of warrant requests. Nevertheless, the purpose of this paper is to establish various policy measures for granting the right to request a warrant so that the police can fulfill its role as an institution to protect the people's human rights during investigation procedures with less negative effects.