The Democratic Party of Korea on Nov. 3 adopted the ‘fabricated prosecution special counsel bill’ as official party policy and said it will push to bring it to a plenary vote on Nov. 5. The clause giving the special counsel power to cancel indictments, the most contested element, has been dropped, but the People Power Party calls the bill an attempt to erase the president's trial and says it will use every available means to stop it.
According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, Democratic Party floor spokesperson Kim Seong-hoe said after a closed-door caucus on Nov. 3 that the bill had been adopted as party line. The party plans to finish drafting the text at the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, in subcommittee and full session, on Nov. 4, and to bring the bill to the floor in consultation with the People Power Party and the Assembly speaker.
광고 문의 · 300×250The core of the revised bill is the deletion of the special counsel's power to cancel indictments from the version floor leadership introduced in April. Targets of investigation are expected to include the Daejang-dong case, the Wirye new-town project and the alleged bribery involving former Democratic Institute deputy head Kim Yong, and the Ssangbangwool cross-border remittance allegations are also reported likely to be added.
Mood inside the Democratic Party
The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported no open objections at the caucus, with a sense that the bill should now go forward since the indictment-cancellation clause was removed. Privately, however, some worried that suspicion the real aim is to cancel the prosecution of President Lee Jae-myung cannot be fully dispelled, and that the bill clashes with the party's livelihood-first line and could hurt approval ratings.
The same day, the party postponed reporting its demand for a parliamentary investigation of Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae to the Nov. 5 plenary, saying it would gather more opinions inside the party. Reports we reviewed do not say whether this was meant to ease the political burden of pushing both measures at once; that point has not been confirmed.
People Power Party: ‘an attempt to bury the president's trial’
The People Power Party pushed back hard. Per the Kyunghyang Shinmun, floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik called the bill an attempt to quietly bury the trials of the president and his associates, and said that if it reaches the plenary, all options including a filibuster will be considered. The party's view is that the choice of investigation targets serves the same goal even without the cancellation clause. The Democratic Party maintains the bill is a procedure to correct alleged fabricated prosecutions, so talks on when and how to bring it to the floor are likely to be this week's political watershed.