On August 4, 2020, Rep. Youngbae Kim of the Democratic Party of Korea
proposed the Amendment Bill of the Police Act and the Amendment Bill of the
Police Officials Act (Bill No. 2102684) at the 21st National Assembly, the gist
o f which are to implement a l o cal auto nomo us p o lice system f rom January 1,
2021. While these two amendment bills are similar to the Amendment Bill of
the Police Act and the Amendment Bill of the Police Officials Act (Bill No.
2019125) proposed by Rep. Ihkpyo Hong on March 11, 2019 during the 20th
National Assembly in terms of the legislative intent to implement a local
autonomous police system, they are controversial as they differ in content from
the earlier amendment bills.

Compared to Rep. Ihkpyo Hong's bills of the 20th National Assembly, the most
distinguishing feature of the new bills introduced by Rep. Youngbae Kim at the
21st National Assembly is that they propose a lower-level of autonomy for the
autonomous police system. Rep. Ihkpyo Hong's version envisions establishing a
five-member autonomous police commission (one standing member), along with
an "autonomous police headquarters " and "autonomous police force" directly
under the jurisdiction of mayors or provincial governors separate from the
national police force, and gradually transferring some 43,000 national police
officials and police affairs, including some investigation authority, to the
autonomous police force (so-called "dual system model"). On the other hand,
under Rep. Youngbae Kim's proposal, while the autonomous police commission
would be seven-member strong (two standing members), the existing national
police force would handle both national and local autonomous police affairs
without establishing a separate autonomous police force and the police officials
in charge of autonomous police affairs would remain national officials (so-called
"unified system model"). As of now, it appears that Rep. Youngbae Kim's proposal
is likely to pass the National Assembly at the end of 2020. Basically, the ruling
and opposition parties differ only on some of the details, such as the scope of
autonomous police affairs and the formation of the autonomous police
commission and, overall, a consensus appears to have formed on the introduction
of a local autonomous policy system itself. Furthermore, although the National
Po lice A gency a nd the Go vernors Asso ciation o f Ko rea, w hich a re t he m ajo r
stakeholders, disagree on some of the provisions, they currently do not object
to the implementation of an autonomous police system based on Rep. Youngbae
Kim's bill itself and are of the position that details can be worked out when
formulating an enforcement decree and enforcement rules.

However, it is hard to see the current situation only positively if we look into
the details. To begin with, there is strong opposition from frontline police officers.
With the Police Officials' Council (hereinafter, the Council) established in June
this year at the forefront, frontline police officers are pushing for a complete
abandonment of Rep. Youngbae Kim's bills on a local autonomous police system.
In the end, a new bill was proposed on November 18, 2020 by Rep. Bumsoo
Suh of the People Power Party that accommodates a significant portion of the
complaints from frontline police officers.

Even the academia and civic groups are mounting criticism. Some criticized
that: "it is like drawing a line on the existing police affairs (pumpkin) and labeling
it as autonomous police affairs (watermelon); "democratic control is lacking"; and
"it is a model with autonomous police (police affairs) but without autonomous
police officers." Furthermore, the general public does not have a high level of
understanding of the autonomous police system. According to a recent survey
conducted by the Korean Institute of Criminology, only half of the public approve
of the introduction of an autonomous police system while the other half oppose
or do not know about it. Compared to more than 80 percent of the public's
approval for the establishment of the Corruption Investigation Office For
High-ranking Officials (CIO) which was legislated at the end of last year, public
support for the introduction of an autonomous police system is relatively low.
The following is an uation of Rep. Youngbae Kim's bill (Amendment Bill
of the Police Act) based on what this author presented during a public hearing
on the autonomous police system held by the 2nd subcommittee of the National
Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee on November 16 this
year and pertinent policy alternatives are presented briefly. First, the position
of Rep. Youngbae Kim's bill can be summarized in the table below.

autonomous police system in the complete sense of the word with a local
government possessing police power comparable to a federal system) is rated
as 100 in terms of the level of autonomy, Rep. Ihkpyo Hong's bill proposed in
March 2019 is approximately 50 and Rep. Youngbae Kim's is 10. The Seoul
Metropolitan Government's proposal would not create any confusion in the
provision of public service or in the chain of command while the dual police
system under Rep. Ihkpyo Hong's bill could lead to significant confusion to the
public although no confusion is expected in terms of the internal chain of
command. On the other hand, while Rep. Youngbae Kim's proposal would cause
confusion due to a three-tiered internal chain of command, his proposal is best
from the efficiency perspectives as it requires little additional financial input and
can enjoy the effect of an economy of scale. The Seoul Metropolitan Government's
proposal could lose the economic effect of scale while Rep. Ihkpyo Hong's bill
also requires a substantial additional financial investment and could lose the
economic effect of scale.

Overall, Rep. Youngbae Kim's bill can be seen as an attempt to complete the
criminal justice reform and to realize comprehensive local self-governing
administration under the circumstance in which the nation is in a state of
financial difficulty due to COVID 19 and can be uated as the second-best
alternative if we presuppose the introduction of a local autonomous police system.
Even though the level of autonomy is not high, the proposal is welcomed by
decentralists because the proposal makes it clear that a local autonomous police
system, which has been discussed for over 20 years without coming into fruition,
will actually be introduced, and because it opens up the possibility of introducing
an autonomous police system in a more complete sense in the future without
causing confusion to the general public. Therefore, in the short term, it appears
that the biggest determinant for the success of Rep. Youngbae Kim's bill is how
to minimize confusion in the internal chain of command and how far police
officers' capacity to accommodate the system can be improved. Rep. Youngbae
Kim's bill consists of 7 chapters, 35 articles and the addenda, as follows.

The points of contention of the bill include: the scope of police affairs in
Chapter 1 General Provisions; the composition, qualification and authority of
the City/Provincial Autonomous Police Commission in Chapter 4; the process
of exercising the authority over personnel at the city/provincial police agency
and police stations and the persons granted with such authority in Chapter 5;
and the addenda concerning a pilot program and the autonomous police of the
Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. Although there are some issues in other
parts of the bill, these four areas have invited differing views of stakeholders
most. Basically, decentralists, including the heads of local governments and the
Governors Association of Korea, etc., want to revise the bill in a way that
strengthens the authority of the local governments while centralists, notably the
National Police Agency, believe that local governments' intervention needs to
be limited at this stage for political neutrality, etc. As seen above, the bill has
failed to garner support from frontline police officers and the Police Officials’
Council is calling for the bill to be withdrawn entirely. Each article at issue will
be examined one by one in order below.

First of all, it is necessary to remove the proviso to Article 4 (1), subparagraph
1 regarding the national police affairs, "Provided, that it shall exclude the local
autonomous police affairs set forth under subparagraph 2." This is because, if
a national police officer performs a task that clearly belongs to the autonomous
police affairs, this may raise an issue of abuse of authority. On the other hand,
if a police officer neglects a certain task that is difficult to categorize, this may
raise a problem of avoiding the charge of dereliction of duty.

Second, concerning the autonomous police affair outlined in Article 4 ( 1),
subparagraph 2, "Work relating to the protection of the homeless, drunk people
and ill wayfarers within t he area," it should be n o ted that t he A ct o n the
Performance of Duties by Police Officers already provides for such "protection"
and the responsibility for the protection of the homeless lies with the local
governments pursuant to the Act on Support for Welfare and Self-Reliance of
the Homeless. In addition, the work concerning "Security of public office buildings
under the management of local governments" needs to be removed as it is subject
to Article 9 of the Local Autonomy Act on the management of public property
and goes against the general trend at home and abroad.

Third, the composition of the City/Provincial Autonomous Police Commission
in Article 20(1) must be grounded in the principle of checks and balances and
representativeness must be secured. The Governors Association of Korea demands
that the number of committee members to be nominated by mayors and governors
be increased to two from the current one and those nominated by the National
Police Committee be reduced from two to one. However, under the current
structure, if a mayor or governor and the majority of the local assembly belong
to the same party (the member recommendation committee will be under the
jurisdiction of mayors and governors), this would likely break the balance o f
power because the proportion of a particular party would be in the ratio of 5:2.
Rather, it would be necessary to consider at least one person to be recommended
by an institution of weak political nature (e.g., courts, etc.) to ensure neutrality
from local politics.

Fourth, regarding the affairs of the City/ Provincial Autonomous Police
Commission set forth in Article 24, the "right to inspect" in subparagraph 8 raises
a problem of double inspection and concerns have been expressed that this is
excessive considering that the right to audit police affairs, the right to demand
a disciplinary action and the right to demand inspection are already provided
for. This needs to be revisited.

Fifth, there has been a suggestion that t he p o st o f a deputy chief o f the
autonomous police be created at the level of police stations (Moon-kyu Hwang,
2020), and the effect of this would not be insignificant from the perspective of
symbolism as well as on the actual performance of duties. However, it is not
determined that this should be a legal requirement.

Sixth, with regard to the addenda, the main issues of contention are whether
to implement a pilot program and to maintain the autonomous police of the
Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. According to the current version of the
addenda, the autonomous police system is expected to be fully implemented from
January 1, 2020. However, it has been observed that not only the local
governments but also the National Policy Agency is not sufficiently prepared for
the implementation. It is necessary to minimize confusion by having a pilot period
for at least three to six months for three to four local governments prior to the
full implementation. Meanwhile, under the addenda, the Jeju autonomous police
will be abolished when the bill enters into force. In fact, employing a dual system
rather than the unified system currently used in other local governments, the
Jeju autonomous police do not fit into the autonomous police system under Rep.
Youngbae Kim's bill. However, it is determined that maintaining the autonomous
police of the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province would be beneficial both to
the future development of the autonomous police system and to local
administration. Most of all, the Jeju autonomous police system sets an excellent
example of problem oriented policing, notably with its special judicial police
system, etc., and it can be established as a model case that demonstrates positive
effects on how the problem of crimes can be resolved through cooperation
between local governments and the police in the future.

Seventh, the proposal submitted as an official opinion of the Governors
Association is uated positively, which calls for the "right of the mayors and
governors to submit opinions on legislation" to be guaranteed in order to resolve
difficulties in introducing and operating the local autonomous police system. Such
a right in regard to autonomous police affairs, which is the ultimate aspect of
the autonomous police system, should be included because it brings
accountability to the mayors and governors. In addition, as the local governments’
participation was minimal during the process of drafting Rep. Youngbae Kim's
bill, the local participation needs to be guaranteed in the process of formulating
the enforcement decree and enforcement rules.
Barring some shortcomings, Rep. Youngbae Kim's bill is significant in that it
"started" the decentralization that has been proposed for more than two decades
while minimizing confusion to the general public and maintaining efficiency. As
it stands, the biggest problem of the bill is the confusion within the internal
chain of command and the police officers' capacity to accommodate the system.
As such, it is imperative to prepare measures to deal with these issues in the
process of enacting the bill into law. In particular, it is expected that an agreement
among stakeholders will not be difficult to reach i f such measures are based
on the overarching principle of "minimizing public concern through the stable
operation of the entire national police system."

Meanwhile, local governments need to pay more attention to the special judicial
police. In fact, it would be a great contradiction if one is not even managing
their own affairs properly when the local autonomous police system centered
on the general judicial police is set to commence its operation.
Finally, as polls show, half of the people either do not know yet or oppose
the autonomous police system. A greater portion of the public understood the
issue of the Corruption Investigation Office For High-ranking Officials (CIO) even
though only some 7,000 people have a stake in the establishment of the CIO
while the public's understanding of the autonomous police system in which all
people have a stake is not high. This is a challenge that should be addressed
through promotional efforts of the local governments and demonstrating positive
effects of the system.