It comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un kept complaining about “laziness” in the country’s economic elites this year, and now he’s going to do something about it. On Monday, a Daily NK source said that in early August, North Korean authorities set up new prosecutorial teams all over the country. This was the result of a decision made by the Third Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee in June. After they spent July picking members and setting up offices, the teams were officially launched in August. Anywhere from 5 to 10 ordinary prosecutors make up the teams. They are led by the deputy head of their local office or one of their “cadre” prosecutors.
A lot of time is being spent by the teams looking into how local businesses processed their goods or exported them in the past. They’re also looking very hard for officials from the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Social Security who take bribes or kickbacks from people who work with them. Prosecutors and counterintelligence officers from the Ministry of State Security also got into an argument early last month over the use of a Chinese-made cell phone.
In the end, the Ministry of State Security was able to look into the individuals because their crime was against the state, not an economic one. It’s common for law enforcement groups like the Ministry of State Security and prosecutors to have disagreements because they do not have well defined areas in which to operate. Prosecution teams will have to look into corruption in the Ministry of State Security, even though it is considered to be the “first line of defense”. In North Korea, the prosecutor’s office has central, provincial, city, county offices, special prosecutorial offices, as well as other bodies.
