By Kim Hyun-bin
The National Police Agency announced, Friday, it will strengthen regulations regarding late-night questioning sessions to better protect suspects' human rights.
Under the current criminal investigation regulations, investigators are banned from questioning suspects from midnight to 6 a.m., barring exceptional circumstances that require filing a detailed report. The rare cases include the process of requesting an arrest warrant close to the deadline of the statute of limitations, or with the suspect's approval.
However, even with these restrictions investigators can take advantage of the system for their convenience and try to gain the suspect's approval, which could turn into a human rights violation, according to police.
The police will strengthen the guidelines from the current “with the suspect's approval” to “when the suspect eagerly requests questioning.”
From now on, investigators will need a handwritten request from the suspect allowing for the process to proceed, which needs to be included in the investigation report.
Even with the confirmation, if the suspect takes part in prolonged questioning and it is deemed to have affected their health, the investigation needs to be postponed.
“We will double check to see if the late-night questioning is necessary. We will also look into the investigation procedures to reduce human rights violations in our practices,” a police official said.
The announcement comes a couple of days after the public criticized the police for not continuing their questioning of Yang Jin-ho, CEO of WeDisk and robot developer K-Technology, who was detained for assault and coercion of employees as well as illegal drug use.
Police questioning was cut short as Yang did not want to continue cooperating as it got late, citing exhaustion.