The National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee's first subcommittee on bill review on the 8th put off deliberation on a Constitutional Court Act amendment that would keep trials from stopping even if a petition for a constitutional review of a law is referred, citing controversy over potential unconstitutionality.
Kim Yong-min of the Democratic Party of Korea, the ruling party's secretary on the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, said after the subcommittee meeting that "the Constitutional Court Act amendment is something on which the Constitutional Court is taking a cautious stance," adding, "We did not handle it because we need internal discussion."
The amendment would create an exception under which serious criminal cases, such as insurrection and treason, would not be suspended even if a petition for a constitutional review of a law is referred. Under current law, a criminal trial must be suspended when such a petition is filed. The Democratic Party has been pushing legislation to prevent insurrection trials from being halted if a constitutional review is sought for the recently proposed "insurrection-dedicated court panel establishment act." Choo Mi-ae, chair of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, is the lead sponsor.
Democratic Party members of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee had planned to pass the bill in one go through the subcommittee and the full committee meeting the same day, but they appear to have shifted to a slower pace as controversy over "possible unconstitutionality" expanded. The full committee meeting scheduled for the afternoon was also canceled.
The Constitutional Court recently conveyed to the committee that the amendment may violate Article 107, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution and that the clause requiring the court to decide on constitutionality within one month is also problematic.
Kim publicly expressed regret over the party leadership's decision to push a revised version of the insurrection-dedicated court panel bill. Kim said, "Items handled by the committee are laws that the party leadership and the floor leadership have already discussed sufficiently, decided on, and passed," adding, "The committee reviewed them thoroughly and crafted them to a level where we determined there was no unconstitutionality, so fundamentally challenging them due to potential constitutional disputes could be an argument that forgets the starting point of the law."
Meanwhile, the subcommittee passed on the day an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act that expands disclosure of lower-court judgments by allowing viewing and copying of rulings in criminal cases that are not yet final. This is a bill the Democratic Party's special committee on judicial reform has pursued as one of its "five judicial reform bills."