The Supreme Court ruled that even if a prosecutor's investigator conducted an investigation under the direction of a prosecutor, it was considered that the prosecutor had initiated the investigation. This is the first case to interpret the provision of Article 4 Paragraph 2 of the Prosecutors' Office Act, which states that prosecutors cannot prosecute crimes that they have directly investigated. The ruling overturned the lower court's decision, finding that it was illegal for a prosecutor to indict even though a prosecutor's investigator had conducted an investigation under the prosecutor's direction in the bribery case against a specific public official, Mr. A. The Supreme Court argued that prosecutor's investigators do not have the authority to initiate investigations, and that investigations conducted under the direction of prosecutors are considered to have been initiated by the prosecutors.
