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All 40 prosecutors dispatched to the special counsel investigating First Lady Kim Keon-hee have requested to return to their original posts, a move that legal experts are calling a de facto act of collective insubordination.

According to officials, the prosecutors—including team leaders at the deputy and chief prosecutor levels—submitted a joint statement to Special Counsel Min Joong-ki on Tuesday under the name “All Prosecutors Assigned to the Special Counsel.”

In their statement, they wrote, “With the recent amendment to the Government Organization Act abolishing the prosecution service and stripping prosecutors of their authority to directly investigate serious crimes, it is confusing for dispatched prosecutors to continue handling the combined tasks of investigation, indictment, and trial duties within the special counsel.”

They further urged Min to publicly state his position on the necessity of prosecutors directly overseeing such cases, while requesting that, after wrapping up the ongoing investigations, they be allowed to return to their original posts to help address a growing backlog of ordinary criminal cases.

Since launching its probe on July 2, Min’s team has detained 14 figures—including Kim Keon-hee, Jeon Seong-bae (known as Geonjin Beopsa), and Han Hak-ja, president of the Unification Church—and indicted nine of them. With the prosecutors now seeking to return, concerns are growing that the pace and completeness of the probe could be compromised.

A former deputy chief prosecutor, now working as a lawyer, commented, “Unlike regular investigations, prosecutors in a special counsel’s office are given independence and neutrality. Demanding to return goes against the very decision they made to join, and can only be interpreted as insubordination.”