As the Democratic Party of Korea introduced a special prosecutor bill to investigate alleged fabricated investigations and indictments by the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, the People Power Party pushed back hard, calling it a "pardoning system" for President Lee Jae-myung. The People Power Party plans to block a vote through a filibuster (a lawful obstruction of proceedings through unlimited debate).
Choi Soo-jin, the People Power Party's senior deputy spokesperson for floor affairs, told reporters at the National Assembly on the 1st, "They are calling for the truth, but the real intent is to cancel President Lee Jae-myung's own trial," and said, "We expect to proceed with a filibuster as a basic step."
Choi also criticized, saying, "They have effectively reduced a special counsel, run on the people's precious taxes, to a 'private law firm' meant solely to block one person's trial."
The special prosecutor bill grants the authority to request the transfer of President Lee's cases, which are in a suspended trial status, and exclusive authority to maintain the prosecution. Depending on the special counsel's judgment, it would also allow the cancellation of the indictment against the president.
The People Power Party is responding immediately in opposition. Chief spokesperson Park Sung-hoon also said in a commentary, "The 41-day parliamentary inquiry ended as a baseless 'empty shell,' only making the president's guilt even clearer," and argued, "Now they are trying to write a new law altogether so the president can erase his own crimes—an unscrupulous trick and an unprecedented legislative attempt."
It added, "The core of this special prosecutor bill is that it grants the power to cancel indictments so that the special counsel can arbitrarily drop cases already indicted by prosecutors and currently on trial," and asked, "Was the endgame of the Democratic Party's calls for prosecutorial and judicial reform ultimately the construction of a 'self-pardoning system' that launders the president's criminal record?"
Oh Se-hoon, a candidate for Seoul mayor, said on social media (SNS), "It is more dangerous and worse than a criminal bribing the prosecutor who indicted them to get the indictment dropped," adding, "They have long crossed a line that must not be crossed. We must save Korea from sinking into the mire of dictatorship in this local election."
Yoo Sang-beom, the senior deputy floor leader, also said on SNS, "They are once again planning to spend hundreds of billions of won in taxpayer money to force the cancellation of indictments in the president's case," pointing out, "The constitutional grand principle of equality before the law is being applied differently to the president alone."