A/HRC/25/CRP.1 military secret police. In 1980, Kim Jong-il was appointed to the Presidium of the Politburo and the Central Military Commission.80 At this stage, he was officially ranked fifth within the DPRK’s leadership. Nevertheless, only Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il held positions in all three of the Party’s leadership bodies (the Politburo, Secretariat and Central Military Commission). Kim Jong-il subsequently shifted decision-making on all policies and personnel appointments from the Politburo to the Party Secretariat Office, his base of power. In 1991, he was appointed as supreme commander of the armed forces. 133. Despite Kim Il-sung’s highly personalized approach to running the DPRK, he had formally involved the Party in decision-making and governance processes. In contrast, Kim Jong-il adopted a highly centralized, top-down leadership style that often relied on informal channels. He also moved his organizational base from the Workers’ Party of Korea to the National Defence Commission which became the leading state body after the 1992 revision of the Constitution (the first revision since 1972).81 In 1993, Kim Jong-il became chairman of the National Defence Commission. 134. Kim Il-sung died in 1994 at the age of 82. In 1997, Kim Jong-il further consolidated his grip on the state security apparatus when he transformed the Social Safety Agency into the Ministry of People’s Security and expanded the overall apparatus. On the basis of these changes, the state security apparatus expanded into a system that rested on five pillars. These continue to be in place under the present Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un:82 1. The State Security Department83 (Kukgabowibu, often referred to as simply Bowibu) is the primary political police. Legally mandated to investigate “Crimes against the state or the nation”, it has the task of identifying and violently suppressing threats to the political system and the Supreme Leader; 2. In addition to regular policing functions, the Ministry of People’s Security (Inminboanseong) also takes on certain political policing functions; 3. The Military Security Command (Bo-wi Saryeong-bu) serves as the political police of the Korean People’s Army; 4. Apart from its ordinary prosecutorial function, the Office of the Prosecutor exercises legal and political monitoring roles; and 5. Special bodies within the Workers’ Party of Korea at the Central Committee level monitor and police senior officials and the security agencies. 135. In practice, the distribution of roles between the respective security agencies has varied over time and between provinces, influenced by political priorities, available capacity, the relative power of senior officials and the extent to which a particular agency enjoyed the trust of the Supreme Leader. In many cases, the three main security agencies— State Security Department, Ministry of People’s Security and Military Security 80 81 82 83 36 Kim Jong-il: Brief History, p. 80. In the 1992 Constitution, the National Defence Commission was elevated to a separate body from the Central People’s Committee. Before this revision, the President held the position of National Defence Commission Chairman as the head of the military. This separation of power from the President effectively made the Chairman of the National Defence Commission the Chief Commander of the State exercising the highest military authority. Yoon Dae-kyu, “The Constitution of North Korea: Its Changes and Implications”, Fordham International Law Journal, vol. 27, No. 4 (2003), p. 1299. For a detailed analysis of the activities of the security apparatus and their compliance with international human rights obligations see section V, in particular sub-sections V.A, V.B, V.B.1 and V.D. The Kukgabowibu is sometimes also translated as the National Security Agency or the Ministry of State Security.