Incentive for surveillance

Surveillance is the exercise of authorization by the Public prosecutor's Office Act to ensure management and control relations between different levels of public prosecutor's offices and within individual public prosecutor's offices in the performance of the powers of the public prosecutor's office.

The nearest higher public prosecutor's office is entitled to conduct the surveillance the progress of the nearest lower public prosecutor's offices in their district when dealing with matters within their jurisdiction and to give them written instructions on their progress. The closest lower public prosecutor's office is obliged to follow written instructions, with the exception of an instruction that is contrary to the law in a specific matter. If, for this reason, the nearest lower public prosecutor's office refuses to comply with the instruction, it shall immediately communicate the reasons for the refusal in writing to the nearest higher public prosecutor's office; if the closest higher public prosecutor's office insists on its instruction and does not apply a different procedure, it will remove the matter from the lower public prosecutor's office and handle it itself.

The nearest higher public prosecutor's office can take the case from the nearest lower public prosecutor's office and handle it by itself even if the nearest lower public prosecutor's office is inactive or there are unreasonable delays in its procedure.

Similarly, the chief public prosecutor is authorized to conduct surveillance the progress of public prosecutors and senior officials working at the public prosecutor's office, of which he is the head, and to give them instructions on how to proceed when dealing with matters under the jurisdiction of this public prosecutor's office.

Initiatives can be submitted for the performance of the described surveillance. Therefore, if a certain person feels harmed by the illegal action of the public prosecutor, filing such an initiative can be an effective step leading to redress.