The Police Interview: Your Rights and Interpreters

A police interview in Korea — with an interpreter relaying questions you half-recognize — is one of the most disorienting rooms a foreigner can sit in. It is also a room with more rules protecting you than most people in it will volunteer: rules about language, about time, about the camera, and above all about the document the session produces. This guide covers the interview itself; if the summons just arrived and you want the whole sequence — status, preparation, what happens after — start with Received a Police Summons and come back here for the room.

1. The room, the record, and the camera

Across the table sits the investigator, typing as you speak — because the session’s real output is the suspect examination record (피의자신문조서), the document that travels to the prosecutor and the court. You will be asked to sign it, and Korean procedure gives you genuine control at that moment: the right to read it (or have it read back), demand corrections, and have your objections recorded (Criminal Procedure Act art. 244).

The camera is regulated too. The interview may be video-recorded, but only with advance notice to you, covering the entire session, and the original must be sealed in front of you (or your lawyer) with your signature (art. 244-2). For a foreign suspect, recording usually helps — it preserves tone, pauses, and exactly what the interpreter said. If accuracy worries you, have your lawyer press for recording rather than fearing it.

2. Your rights, mechanically

• Silence, question by question.Before questioning starts you must be told you may refuse to answer — everything, or any single question — without it being used against you (art. 244-3). The practical form is a calm sentence: “I will not answer that question.” Refusing one question does not waive the next.
• Your lawyer, in the chair beside you. Defense counsel may attend the interrogation, object to unfair questioning methods, and state opinions (art. 243-2). An interpreted interview with counsel present is a different, slower, more accurate event — which is precisely the point.
• A trusted person can be permitted to sit in where age, health, or other circumstances call for it (art. 244-5) — worth requesting for anyone who would otherwise face the room entirely alone.
• Breaks, meals, and an exit. A voluntary interview remains voluntary: you may request breaks, and you may leave to consult your lawyer. Ask; the request itself goes on the record.

3. The interpreter: your right, not a favor

The police’s own investigation rules require that a foreigner being questioned be interpreted into a language they understand, and at trial the Criminal Procedure Act makes interpretation mandatory for anyone not versed in Korean (art. 180). The interpreter is arranged by the agency and costs you nothing — this is infrastructure, not a courtesy.

The trap is the middle ground: the foreigner whose Korean handles restaurants and workplaces, and who gets waved through in Korean because it seems fine. The Human Rights Commission has pushed investigative agencies to actively confirm interpretation needs even for foreigners who speak everyday Korean — because legal Korean under stress is a different language. If any part of you wants the interpreter, say so at scheduling, not at the door; and if questioning starts drifting into Korean-only exchanges, stop it.

Availability varies by language. English, Chinese, Vietnamese, and other widely spoken languages draw on established interpreter pools; rarer languages can take days to arrange, and remote interpretation may be offered instead. That is a scheduling fact, not a reason to compromise — an interview postponed for the right interpreter is a normal event, and far cheaper than a record produced through the wrong one.

4. Working through an interpreter well

The interpreter relays; they do not advise or summarize — and the read-back of the record through them is the most important ten minutes of the session.

1. 1

   Confirm the language and the booking beforehand

   At scheduling: which language (and dialect where it matters), in person or remote, and that the interpreter is booked for your session — not "we will see on the day."
2. 2

   Speak short, complete, and literal

   Interpretation degrades long, hedged answers. One fact per sentence; no idioms; pause for the relay. If a question comes back garbled, say you did not understand — never guess.
3. 3

   Keep the interpreter neutral

   The interpreter relays; they do not advise, summarize, or negotiate. If they start editorializing — or you understand enough Korean to notice mismatches — raise it immediately.
4. 4

   The read-back is where you fight

   Before signing, have the entire record read back through the interpreter. Correct anything that is not what you said; corrections and objections must be entered (art. 244). Unhurried, line by line — this is the part of the day that decides what the file says.

If interpretation is genuinely failing — wrong language variant, missing chunks, visible confusion — say so on the record and ask for the session to pause until a replacement is arranged. A postponed interview costs an afternoon; a signed record in words that were never yours costs far more.

5. Clocks: how long they can question you

• No night questioning. Interrogation between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. is barred, with narrow exceptions that must be justified in the record; reviewing an already-written record may run until midnight.
• 12 hours wall-clock, 8 hours of questioning. A session — including waiting, meals, and breaks — must not exceed 12 hours in total, with actual questioning capped at 8; both limits come from the joint investigation-standards regulation binding police and prosecutors alike.
• 8 hours off before the next round. Once a session ends, you cannot be questioned again until 8 hours have passed.

One boundary to keep clear: these are the rules for the ordinary, voluntary interview. Arrest and detention run on their own, stricter timetables and their own rights — if you have been arrested rather than invited, the advice in this guide still helps inside the interview room, but getting counsel engaged immediately matters far more than any scheduling tactic.

Use the clocks when scheduling: a morning start means the interpreter, your lawyer, and your own concentration all survive the day. An interview that begins at 7 p.m. is one to rebook — which, as covered in the summons guide, is a normal phone call, not defiance.

6. Common mistakes

• Nodding along. In Korean conversation, nodding is politeness; in an interview record, it can read as agreement. Answer in words, through the interpreter.
• Answering in survival Korean to speed things up. The record does not note that you were being brave. Pick one language for testimony and hold it.
• Bringing a friend or spouse as the interpreter. They lack neutrality, may become witnesses themselves, and their relationship to you invites challenges to the record. Supplementing with your own professional interpreter, through your lawyer, is a different matter.
• Signing a record you did not hear read back in full.The signature line is the single most consequential moment of the session — treat “it just says what we discussed” as the cue to slow down, not speed up.
• Not eating, not resting, not asking. Fatigue produces bad statements. The breaks exist; requesting them is unremarkable.
• Confiding in the interpreter. The interpreter is neutral, not your ally — anything you say in the room, including asides in your own language, can be relayed and recorded. Save the strategy talk for your lawyer, outside.

Frequently asked questions

The interview sits inside a longer sequence — what the summons means, how to prepare, and what the police and prosecutor decide afterward are covered in Received a Police Summons, and the settlement lever that shapes many outcomes in Settlement (합의) in Criminal Cases.

Written by Attorney Chulho Choi (SOL & LUNA / Law Firm Myeong, KBA-registered specialist in Civil and Criminal Law). Reviewed as of August 2026. Updated when laws change.