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Kweon Seong-dong, floor leader for the People Power Party, filibusters during a plenary session of the National Assembly opened to pass prosecution reform legislation on April 27. (pool photo)

On Wednesday afternoon, a plenary session of the National Assembly was convened aimed at passing a bill that would separate prosecutors’ powers of investigation and indictment. The session came just 17 hours after the Democratic Party passed the bills through the National Assembly’s Judiciary Committee at around midnight that day.

The People Power Party (PPP), which backed out of an agreement between the ruling and opposition parties and has now turned against the bill completely, decided to hold a sit-in at the National Assembly and has now opted to filibuster to block the Democratic Party’s efforts.

With Yoon Suk-yeol’s inauguration just around the corner, the ruling and opposition parties are as confrontational as ever.

The National Assembly opened a plenary session at 5 pm Wednesday and introduced amendments to the Prosecutors' Office Act and the Criminal Procedure Act to separate the investigative and prosecutorial authorities currently held by the prosecution service.

National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug, who had brought the two parties together to reach the arbitration agreement on Friday, expressed his “deep regret” over the current situation.

“It is difficult to find a precedent for unilaterally abolishing an agreement that was even ratified through a party caucus,” Park said, criticizing the PPP.

The PPP has concentrated all its firepower on blocking the legislation, carrying out through filibusters and sit-ins, as well as filing for an injunction with the Constitutional Court to suspend the validity of the decisions issued by the agenda coordination committee of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

The main opposition party’s floor leader, Kweon Seong-dong, strongly condemned Democratic Party for waiting until the eleventh hour to pass this bill, likening the legislative push at the end of President Moon Jae-in’s term to a “military operation.”

Kweon added that “having failed to tame the prosecution, now [Democrats] are trying to leave it as nothing but an empty shell.”

Chang Je-won, President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's chief of staff, told reporters that he would be suggesting to Yoon to put the prosecution reform bills up for a national referendum during the upcoming June 1 local elections.

The Democratic Party countered with a strategy of neutralizing the opposition’s filibuster through a by holding two more one-day extraordinary sessions to pass the two bills. The filibuster held Wednesday ended at midnight, the end of the National Assembly session.

The Democratic Party's goal is to pass the amendment to the Prosecutor's Office Act at the plenary session to be held on Saturday and to pass the amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act in the same way on Tuesday, May 3, thus setting the seal on their prosecution reform push.

At 12:11 am Wednesday, the Democratic Party decided to independently pass these two bills at plenary sessions of the National Assembly Judiciary Committee despite protests by dozens of PPP lawmakers.

The amendments include that the prosecution's right to launch investigations into four of six major crimes, including crimes related to elections, public officials, defense projects, and major disasters, will be abolished in four months. This means that the prosecution will only be able to investigate election-related crimes until the end of this year.

By Joh Yun-yeong, staff reporter; Oh Yeon Seo, staff reporter

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