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The National Assembly on the day it revised an act for establishing an office to investigate corruption among high-ranking officials on Dec. 10

The National Assembly’s passage of a revision to the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) Act on Dec. 10 paves the way for opening the office before the end of the year. While the ruling Democratic Party maintains that revising the act was the only way to launch the office, which it has advocated as a component of prosecutorial reform for two decades, sharp resistance from the main opposition party has brought a rapid chill to the political mood.

The revised bill, which reduces the opposition party’s ability to veto candidates for CIO director, passed in a plenary session of the National Assembly on Thursday afternoon with 187 in favor, 99 against and 1 abstaining.

The People Power Party (PPP) held a filibuster against revising the bill on Wednesday, the final day of the National Assembly’s regular session. But the bill was automatically brought to the floor when an extraordinary session began the following day.

Democratic Party lawmaker Cho Eung-cheon, who has always been critical of establishing the CIO, boycotted the vote, while Justice Party lawmaker Jang Hye-yeong abstained, given her opposition to revising the act.

The revised bill that passed eases the quorum needed for the candidate recommendation committee to nominate CIO directors from “at least six of seven,” as originally phrased, to “at least two-thirds.” That means that a nomination can be made despite opposition from both of the PPP’s two lawmakers on the seven-person committee.

The revision also authorizes the speaker of the National Assembly to nominate the chair of the Korea Law Professors Association, the chair of the Korean Association of Law Schools, or other figures recommend candidates if the political parties fail to do so within 10 days.

Furthermore, the revision relaxes the requirements for serving as a prosecutor on the CIO. The original act required those prosecutors to have been licensed as a lawyer for at least 10 years and to have at least five years of practical experience in trials, research and investigations. But the threshold has been lowered to simply being licensed as a lawyer for at least seven years.

The argument employed here was that maintaining the original requirements might make it difficult to recruit prosecutors. But in effect, the change makes it much easier for lawyers without a background in the prosecution service — that is, the kind of lawyers preferred by the Democratic Party — to be hired by the CIO.

In a statement released immediately after the revision was adopted, the PPP slammed the Democratic Party for “trampling on ethics and on 70 years of tradition at the National Assembly in order to set up the CIO.”

On Thursday morning, PPP Floor Leader Joo Ho-young, People’s Party leader Ahn Cheol-soo and former Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Moon-soo established a joint front against President Moon Jae-in that they call the “Emergency Coalition for Ending Tyranny and Obtaining Democracy.”

The Blue House, which has supported establishing the CIO, welcomed the development. “President Moon said he hopes the remaining procedures, including the recommendation of candidates for the CIO director and hearings for the nominee, will go smoothly and without any hitches so that the CIO can be officially launched at the beginning of 2021,” said Blue House Spokesperson Kang Min-seok.

The Democratic Party plans to speed up the process by immediately reconvening the candidate recommendation committee and selecting two candidates for CIO director.

By Lee Ji-hye, staff reporter

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