hankyoreh

Democratic Party floor leader Kim Tae-nyeon (left), National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug (center), and People Power Party floor leader Joo Ho-young at the National Assembly on Nov. 23. (Hankyoreh archives)

The Democratic Party has initiated procedures to unilaterally push through an amendment to the Act on the Establishment and Operation of the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) for investigating corruption among high-ranking Officials. The amendment would loosen the conditions for nominating CIO directors.

The party’s plan is to break through the first “line of defense” in the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Dec. 7, after which it will tackle the second with a Legislation and Judiciary Committee plenary session before crossing the final threshold with the last plenary meeting of the National Assembly’s regular session on Dec. 9.

In a Facebook post on the evening of Dec. 5, Democratic Party floor leader Kim Tae-nyeon wrote, “The ruling and opposition parties will do their utmost to reach an agreement on a CIO director nomination by Dec. 6. If this cannot be done, we will be amending the law during the regular parliamentary session next week to revise the nomination conditions.”

Nine first-term lawmakers with the Democratic Party held a press conference at the National Assembly Communication Building on the morning of Dec. 6 to call for the passage of a CIO Act amendment.

“Does the need to ‘win over’ the opposition party mean that we can’t win over the South Korean public? This is a golden moment for keeping our promise to the South Korean people,” said lawmaker Kim Yong-min.

Within the party, many are talking about a “three-day scenario,” in which an amendment to the CIO Act is first passed by the legislation subcommittee on Dec. 7, after which it is approved by a plenary session of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee before being proposed at the National Assembly’s plenary session on Dec. 9. A lawmaker and member of the Democratic Party leadership said the party’s plan is to “pass amendments to the CIO Act, the Police Act, the National Intelligence Service Act, and the Commercial Act in the Legislation and Judiciary Committee on Dec. 7.”

“Unless the opposition changes its attitude, there will be no further negotiations,” the lawmaker declared.

For now, the People Power Party (PPP) has said it plans to “work toward reaching an agreement [on resuming nomination committee operations] by tomorrow and finding [a way]” in connection with the CIO director nomination issue. At the same time, it sent a clear message that it does not plan to follow the tempo dictated by the Democratic Party. In an emergency meeting with reporters on Dec. 6, floor leader Joo Ho-young said, “If the Democratic Party tries to unreasonably amend the law to find someone who suits their tastes, they are going to run into popular resistance.”

By Jung Hwan-bong and Jang Na-rye, staff reporters

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