The new Public Prosecution Service will begin operations on Oct. 2 with roughly 1,834 to 1,948 prosecutors, or 80% to 85% of the current statutory ceiling of 2,292. The Ministry of Justice plans to reduce that ceiling after an external review of the service’s workload and structure, followed by consultations with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the National Assembly. Prosecutors will be redeployed to assign one trial prosecutor to each of 331 criminal court divisions across 18 district offices, while headquarters planning offices and units handling police non-referrals will be reduced. President Lee Jae Myung approved Lee So-young as minister of SMEs and startups and Lee Jeong-hyun as deputy prosecutor general while attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Lee Jeong-hyun, identified in earlier reporting as Lee Jung-hyun, heads the Suwon High Prosecutors’ Office and had been named acting prosecutor general after Kim Seung-won withdrew as justice minister nominee. The service will launch without a permanent chief, while legal circles warn that staffing reductions, the transfer of prosecutors to trial work and the loss of supplementary investigative powers could worsen an existing case backlog of 165,000 unresolved cases nationwide in August.