From Seoul to Tirana: When Prosecutors Become Political Actors: Pre-Trial Detention and The Erosion of Electoral Choice

Days before Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, Jack Smith released a final report asserting that a conviction would have been certain if not for the 2024 election results. Coming after the case was dropped, the report functioned as a retrospective verdict, while the electorate delivered a different judgment. This moment underscores a core American truth: law is essential, but legitimacy ultimately rests on the consent of the governed. Courts and prosecutors wield authority, but that authority cannot disregard democratic choice without consequences.

South Korea: Republic of Prosecutors and Democratic Backlash

When prosecutors operate above the law, they can weaponize justice to influence political outcomes. South Korea provides a striking example. Its Prosecutors’ Office long concentrated investigative and prosecutorial power to such an extent that the last five presidents faced legal actions after leaving office, creating a political environment where prosecutorial overreach routinely threatened the democratic process.

President Lee Jae-myung, who assumed office in June 2025 following the impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol, faced intense legal scrutiny throughout his campaign. Investigations into alleged corruption and breaches of trust hampered his electoral efforts, exemplifying South Korea’s reputation as the prosecutors’ dictatorial inclinations. Despite these legal obstacles, Lee won, prompting a court to halt his ongoing criminal trials. This outcome highlighted the tension between prosecutorial power and electoral legitimacy: while prosecutors could threaten political figures, voters ultimately decided the outcome.

The legislature’s 2025 decision to abolish the Prosecutors’ Office and separate investigative from prosecutorial powers marked a decisive democratic correction. After decades of debate, reform became unavoidable when prosecutors openly engaged in partisan conflicts under Yoon, aggressively targeting opposition figures while failing to scrutinize allies of the administration. By dismantling the concentration of coercive authority, the legislature reasserted democratic control, showing that even deeply entrenched judicial overreach can be reversed through sustained institutional reform.

Turkey: Pretrial Detention as Political Neutralization

The arrest and pretrial detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, along with over 100 other municipal officials and politicians, illustrates how judicial mechanisms can neutralize political opposition. On March 19, 2025, Turkish authorities detained İmamoğlu on broad corruption and terrorism charges. As the repeatedly elected mayor of Turkey’s largest city and Erdoğan’s primary opposition figure, İmamoğlu represented a direct electoral threat. Pretrial detention, in this context, functioned not as a safeguard against flight or evidence tampering but as a tool to block democratic competition.

The lawfare against İmamoğlu is multi-front and multi-purpose: criminal prosecutions, terrorism allegations, administrative manipulations such as retroactive diploma cancellations, and coordinated media attacks all converge to limit his political activity. Pretrial detention isolates political figures from voters and party structures, replacing electoral accountability with judicial constraints. Turkish courts, in effect, have transformed into instruments of political control, sidelining opposition without the transparency of trial proceedings.

Albania — Pretrial Detention and Political Neutralization

Albania’s justice system further illustrates the dangers of unchecked prosecutorial power. With more than half of its prison population reportedly held without trial, the country relies heavily on pretrial detention. The system’s dependence on pretrial detention has produced cases like that of Erion Veliaj, the mayor of Tirana, now detained for more than a year without trial. In February 2025, the Special Anti-Corruption Structure (SPAK) detained Mayor Veliaj ahead of parliamentary elections, effectively neutralizing him as a political actor and depriving the electorate of its chosen representative. Albanian authorities have since denied Veliaj multiple due process and political rights, including holding him in detention for six months without formal charges, attempting to remove him from his elected office—an effort ultimately rejected by the Constitutional Court, and denying him access to more than 60,000 pages of evidentiary material. Collectively, these measures raise serious concerns about the compatibility of Albania’s prosecutorial practices with basic rule-of-law and due process standards.

Albania — Structural Imbalance Enables SPAK Overreach

The root of SPAK’s power lies in structural judicial weakness. Judges are institutionally hesitant to resist prosecutorial requests, leading to routine approval of detention and disregard for procedural norms. Veliaj’s pretrial detention exemplifies how prosecutorial authority can displace judicial independence, achieving political outcomes under the guise of legality. Prolonged incarceration without trial becomes a tool of political neutralization, highlighting systemic vulnerabilities in Albania’s justice system.

Conclusion — Oversight and Accountability Matter

Recognizing these abuses, Trump froze U.S. funding to Albanian institutions, including SPAK, citing the lack of oversight. SPAK’s dependence on external aid incentivized high-profile cases at the expense of due process, decoupling prosecutorial power from democratic accountability. Across Albania, Turkey, and South Korea, when prosecutors detain or harass political actors without trial, the law becomes political coercion rather than justice.

South Korea demonstrates that reform is achievable through structural rebalancing and democratic accountability. Albania, by contrast, shows that external funding—absent robust institutional safeguards and political oversight—can weaponize prosecutorial power. Democratic governance depends on procedural limits, transparency, and institutional checks; without them, prosecutors and other empowered institutions can distort electoral competition, marginalize political opponents, and override the will of the electorate.