Despite Lee’s Appeal, Public Prosecution Office and Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Bills Remain Stalled: Will the 19th Plenary Vote Fall Through?

[Financial News] Despite President Lee Jae-myung’s call for a “surgical correction” of Prosecution Reform, the government bills to establish the Serious Crime Investigation Agency and the Public Prosecution Office are stuck in a bottleneck. The blockage stems from lawmakers Choo Mi-ae and Kim Yong-min, who lead the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, the final gateway for the bills. They insist on the complete abolition of prosecutors’ supplementary investigation powers and oppose passage of the government’s Public Prosecution Office bill. On top of this, the twin bill to create the Serious Crime Investigation Agency is also stalled at the subcommittee of the Security and Public Administration Committee of the National Assembly, as both the People Power Party (PPP) and the Rebuilding Korea Party oppose it. As a result, expectations are growing that the ruling party’s original plan to pass the bills at the plenary session on the 19th will be difficult to realize.
According to political sources on the 16th, the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea will hold a full committee meeting on the 19th, when the plenary session is scheduled. The ruling party aims to push the government bills on the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act and the Indictment Agency Act through the committee that day, just before the plenary session, and bring them to a floor vote. A party official said, “Floor leader Han Byung-do has been in constant contact with the committee chair and the ruling party’s secretary on the committee to work behind the scenes,” signaling a strong will to move the bills forward.
This atmosphere appears to have been influenced by President Lee’s dinner with first-term lawmakers on the 15th, where he effectively urged them to pass the government bills. At the dinner, Lee was quoted as saying, “Not all prosecutors are bad, are they?” suggesting that not every push-through style reform ends in success. He had previously remarked, “You can’t burn down the whole house just to kill a few bedbugs,” indicating that he does not want the issue of supplementary investigation powers to explode into the core fault line of Prosecution Reform. Party leader Jung Chung-rae, reading Lee’s intentions, has repeatedly declared in public that he stands with the president on this matter.
However, during the full meeting of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea held that day, committee chair Choo Mi-ae and Democratic Party secretary Kim Yong-min did not express any position on the president’s appeal from Cheong Wa Dae (the Blue House). If they proceed as scheduled with the public hearing on the Indictment Agency Act on the 20th, handling of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act and the Indictment Agency Act will in effect be pushed back to the next plenary session on the 31st. A committee official noted, “The public hearing has not yet been canceled,” hinting that behind-the-scenes coordination between the floor leadership and the committee is still underway. At the subcommittee meeting of the Security and Public Administration Committee of the National Assembly held the same day, the PPP objected to the scope of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) minister’s authority, while the Rebuilding Korea Party raised objections to prosecutors’ powers to request supplementary investigations, leaving deliberations on the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act at a standstill.

jiwon.song@fnnews.com Song Ji-won Reporter