The ruling and opposition parties launched a filibuster (a lawful obstruction of proceedings through unlimited debate) over handling the bill to establish a court division dedicated to insurrection cases.
The National Assembly convened a plenary session on the 22nd and placed on the agenda the bill to establish a court division dedicated to insurrection cases. Led by the Democratic Party of Korea, the bill passed The National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee and calls for creating a division that would exclusively handle cases such as former President Yoon Suk-yeol's insurrection charges.
The Democratic Party moved to draft a revised plan after controversy erupted over the bill's constitutionality. The core of the revision was to establish the division starting at the appellate level and to exclude outside figures from the process of recommending and appointing judges to the division.
Chief spokesperson Park Su-hyeon told reporters after the party caucus ended that "in the final plan, we will not form a recommendation committee. Instead, if the judges' councils of the Seoul Central District Court and the High Court set standards for the number of divisions dedicated to insurrection and the qualifications of judges, each court's case assignment committee will distribute cases accordingly, and then each court president will make appointments as resolved by the judges' councils."
Park, the chief spokesperson, added, "Because of a lack of confidence in Chief Justice Jo Hee-de, there has been a push to form a dedicated division, but there were concerns that the plans so far did not exclude Chief Justice Jo's involvement," and "the final plan was structured to remove the chief justice's involvement."
The People Power Party is strongly opposing the establishment of a division dedicated to insurrection cases. Song Eon-seog, the People Power Party floor leader, said at the supreme council meeting that "the Supreme Court has already said it will establish dedicated divisions for nationally important cases by enacting administrative rules," arguing there is no justification to push the bill to establish a division dedicated to insurrection cases.
When the Democratic Party of Korea placed the bill to establish a division dedicated to insurrection cases on the plenary agenda that day, the People Power Party immediately launched a filibuster. Attention grew as People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok personally stepped up as the first speaker of the filibuster. It is the first time in constitutional history that the leader of the main opposition party has taken part in a filibuster.
The standoff over the filibuster is expected to continue through the 24th. Once the vote on the bill to establish a division dedicated to insurrection cases is completed on the 23rd, the Democratic Party plans to immediately bring to the floor a revision to the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, known as the fake news eradication bill. The bill would allow claims for damages up to five times the amount of harm for spreading false or fabricated information. If the People Power Party launches another filibuster, a vote will be held on the 24th.
With the revision to the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, the National Assembly's handling of bills for the year will conclude. As the ruling and opposition parties have been locked in a filibuster throughout December, the National Assembly's core task of processing bills has been neglected. From the 1st of this month to now, 116 bills have passed the plenary session. Even including the bill to establish a division dedicated to insurrection cases and the network act revision, the total comes to just 118. Even in December last year, when confusion was extreme due to the martial law situation, the National Assembly processed 191 bills.