The two-month State Affairs Planning Committee, tasked with developing a blueprint for how the Lee Jae Myung administration will run the country for the next five years, gave a halfway review on Sunday.
Committee head Lee Han-joo said at a press conference that the blueprint was in the final stages of being completed. Lee is also director of the Democratic Party of Korea's think tank, the Institute for Democracy, and a longtime policy mentor to the president.
The committee has so far listed around 120 policy goals across ministries that center around fostering economic growth and achieving greater equality in society, said Lee. He added that the committee has picked 16 out of the 120 policy goals that rank higher in priority to be executed as soon as the respective ministries give the green light.
"We will begin delivering for the South Korean people as soon as we sort out the policy priorities," the director said.
Policies anticipated to be among the top priorities include overhauling the criminal justice system to abolish the public prosecution service and establishing new bodies for investigation and indictment. Critics of this contested plan say this will inhibit a timely administration of justice by complicating procedures.
Under the plan outlined by the Democratic Party, prosecutors will lose the power to investigate crimes or oversee preliminary investigations by the police. The role of prosecutors in the criminal justice system will be reduced to determining whether to indict those accused of committing a crime.
President Lee had also said in his first press conference on July 3 that he expects a preliminary framework for prosecution service reform to be completed before October.
Aside from the restructuring of the criminal justice system, the State Affairs Planning Committee has subcommittees dedicated to delivering on the president's priority issues, such as artificial intelligence development, universal basic income and tax reforms.
The State Affairs Planning Committee launched on June 16 and runs for 60 days until Aug. 14, when the final blueprint is set to be released, with a possible extension of 20 days.
arin@heraldcorp.com
