Can a Search Plan Hold Warrant Execution in Check? Five Questions for the Bill on Search and Seizure of Electronic Information

Materials and status as checked on September 30, 2026

The text read is the Partial Amendment Bill to the Criminal Procedure Act introduced on September 2, 2026 by Assembly member Park Eun-jung and nine others, bill number 2221023. The status page of the National Participatory Legislation Center shows the bill only up to its referral to the Legislation and Judiciary Committee on September 3. Any subsequent passage, incorporation into an alternative bill, discarding, promulgation or entry into force cannot be confirmed from this material.

The reasons for the proposal, the amended provisions, the Addenda and the comparison table of new and old provisions in the 11-page attached PDF were checked. The summary gives the hearing provision as Article 25-3, but the amended text and the comparison table give it as Article 215-3. The numbering of the text is followed below. The wording in the Addenda, six months after promulgation, is a proposed condition for entry into force, not a confirmed date of entry into force.

Sources for this section: National Participatory Legislation Center — Partial Amendment Bill to the Criminal Procedure Act 2221023 · Bill 2221023 original text PDF — amended provisions, Addenda and comparison table of new and old provisions

This is not the creation of a participation right where none existed

The baseline for comparison is the version in force from July 1, 2026, as published by the National Law Information Center. Article 121 provides for the participation of the prosecutor, the defendant and defence counsel in the execution of a warrant, and Article 122 provides for prior notice and its exceptions. The exceptions are where a person has expressly stated an intention not to participate and where the matter is urgent. Article 219 applies Articles 118 to 132 mutatis mutandis to search and seizure, etc. by investigative agencies. This piece examines the additional mechanisms proposed by the bill; it does not assume that every protection offered by current case law and rules has been surveyed, nor that no recording obligation currently exists.

Sources for this section: National Law Information Center — Criminal Procedure Act, version in force from July 1, 2026

(1) Who verifies, and on what basis, that a plan cannot be stated?

Proposed Article 215-4 requires that a request for a warrant for electronic information state a concrete execution plan, including the storage medium, the search terms and the period to be searched. At the same time, it allows an exception where there are special circumstances making it impossible to state the plan. A situation in which the folder structure of a mobile phone is not yet known serves as an illustration for discussion. Is the difficulty of fixing some of the search terms for that reason the same problem as being unable even to limit the period relevant to the case?

Even where an exception is allowed, it would be necessary to require an explanation that distinguishes which items are impossible and why. If the technical limitations of the medium and mere investigative inconvenience are accepted as the same ground, review of the plan loses much of its meaning. Conversely, compelling every item to be fixed in advance risks requiring information that genuinely cannot be known to be written down. It must be decided to what level an explanation of the grounds for the exception and an alternative plan covering what is possible should be required. This is an editorial suggestion for supplementing the bill; the text is not read as already prescribing such documents or review standards.

Sources for this section: Bill 2221023 original text PDF — amended provisions, Addenda and comparison table of new and old provisions

(2) Once a search term is changed, what effect does the original plan have?

The direct subject of proposed Article 215-4 is what must be stated at the time of the warrant request. The provision contains no sentence making the entire plan a condition of the warrant as issued, nor any sentence prescribing a procedure for amendment during execution. It therefore cannot be concluded at the outset that adding a search term automatically violates this bill.

For example, a distinction must be drawn between adding a search term after belatedly discovering an abbreviation used for the same case and broadening the period in order to look for separate transactions. It is difficult to reduce both situations to a single approach, whether leaving both to on-site discretion or requiring a new warrant for both. Could a boundary be designed that records the reason for a change of plan and the time it was actually applied, and that rechecks its relationship to the scope of the warrant? The focus of this question is that the plan in the request, the scope permitted by the court and the actual search history must be capable of being checked against one another.

Sources for this section: Bill 2221023 original text PDF — amended provisions, Addenda and comparison table of new and old provisions

(3) At a hearing where the judge hears further explanation, can the weaknesses of that explanation also come to light?

Proposed Article 215-3 allows a judge who considers it necessary to set a date before deciding on issuance and to hear the opinion of the investigative agency that applied for or requested the warrant. The prosecutor may also appear and state an opinion, and where the judge considers it necessary, the opinion of a witness proposed by that investigative agency may also be heard. The text neither makes a hearing mandatory for every warrant nor guarantees a hearing at which the suspect and the investigative agency face each other on an equal footing.

Even if investigative secrecy and the preservation of evidence make it difficult to notify the person subject to the seizure in advance, it should be possible to scrutinise the limitations of the technical explanation submitted. Is a procedure not needed for asking under what conditions false positives or omissions arise in an explanation that a search method can filter out only material relevant to the case, and why a narrower method would be insufficient? The text leaves the matters necessary for hearing opinions to the Supreme Court Rules. Lists of questions or methods of assisting expert review are presented as design tasks for those Rules, and must not be described as creating a new right of participation for independent experts.

Sources for this section: Bill 2221023 original text PDF — amended provisions, Addenda and comparison table of new and old provisions

(4) May the determination that the urgent situation has ended be made after the search is over?

Proposed Article 122 (2) requires that, once the ground for the exception to notice ceases to exist, the date, time and place of execution be notified and an opportunity to participate be given. Consider, for instance, a situation in which material is sorted at a separate location after urgent preservation work. Whether the initial urgency continues into later stages is a separate question. The example here is a hypothetical for testing how the bill would operate, not a fact of an actual case.

If it is not apparent who determined when the ground ceased to exist and what execution remained at that point, notice may be given again while nothing is left in which to participate meaningfully. Where a person who initially stated expressly that he or she would not participate later changes his or her mind, it would also be necessary to settle from when, and in what manner, the request is received. The text provides for an opportunity after the ground for the exception ceases to exist, but does not set out in detail the procedure for making and recording that determination. This is why a mechanism recording both the time of restoration and the remaining stages of execution deserves consideration.

Sources for this section: Bill 2221023 original text PDF — amended provisions, Addenda and comparison table of new and old provisions · National Law Information Center — Criminal Procedure Act, version in force from July 1, 2026

(5) Recording in the protocol that an objection was made differs from recording it so that it can be reviewed

Proposed Article 123-2 allows the defendant, defence counsel and the participants under each paragraph of Article 123 to state their opinions during execution. Proposed Article 130-2 requires the protocol to record the substance of those statements of opinion and of dispositions concerning the issuance of certificates and lists, the custody and disposal of seized articles, and similar matters. The provisions do not require opinions to be taken down verbatim, nor that execution be automatically suspended when an objection is raised.

As an illustration for discussion, suppose an objection is raised that a particular folder contains only family photographs predating the period of the case. If the protocol records only the fact that an objection was raised, it will be difficult to ascertain later which material and which search stage were at issue. What should the minimum record be that can link the target, the time, the gist of the objection and how it was dealt with? This must be distinguished from any need to reproduce in the protocol the content of the photographs or the personal details of third parties. For the right to state an opinion to result in a record usable in later review, both the fidelity of the summary and the avoidance of unnecessary duplication of personal information must be considered.

Sources for this section: Bill 2221023 original text PDF — amended provisions, Addenda and comparison table of new and old provisions

Scope of these questions

These five questions are a review aimed at giving concrete shape to the mechanisms in the text of the bill. They offer no conclusion on the lawfulness of any individual search and seizure or on the admissibility of evidence. The Addenda likewise draw the line differently: the provisions on warrant hearings and execution plans apply from the first case in which a request is made after entry into force, and the provisions on participation, opinions and protocols from the first case in which execution takes place after entry into force. Even if the same text enters into force in future, the request date and the execution date must not be conflated in determining which cases are covered.

Sources for this section: Bill 2221023 original text PDF — amended provisions, Addenda and comparison table of new and old provisions