KB News Desk
Right-leaning lawmakers slammed President Lee Jae Myung for not vetoing a revision to the Criminal Procedure Act that removed all investigative powers from the prosecutors’ office for the first time in more than seven decades.
Rep. Jang Dong-hyeok, chair of the People Power Party, said that Lee’s decision not to veto the bill will “lead to the cancellation of the Lee administration.” Jang attended a parliamentary forum calling on the administration to reverse the revision Tuesday.
Following the Cabinet approval, People Power Party’s senior spokesperson Rep. Park Choong-kwon said in a statement the same day, “The will of the people who asked the president to use his veto power was ultimately ignored.”
The contentious bill “passed without any brakes,” Park said, adding that the bill poses a direct challenge to criminal justice while leaving victims of most crimes, including murder and theft, “left in the blind spot of protection.”
Park slammed Lee for “consistently displaying extreme irresponsibility by deliberately ignoring the possible chaos in the judicial system.” This stems from Park’s view that the provisions in the bill for protecting crime victims “lack value.”
Later on Tuesday afternoon, independent lawmaker Rep. Han Dong-hoon, who formerly chaired the People Power Party and served as the justice minister during the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, said the Cabinet’s approval of the revision “opened the gates of hell for all South Korean people.”
Han’s remarks came as he convened a parliamentary forum attended by a survivor of a high-profile assault case in 2022, known by her pseudonym Kim Jin-joo. Kim and conservative politicians have claimed that the truth about the case was only fully revealed when the prosecution intervened in the case after it found the police investigation insufficient.
Han, who was a prosecutor before he entered politics in 2024, also said Democratic Party lawmakers’ claims of political persecution by the prosecution “do not change the fact that they committed serious law violations,” given that the courts had found the politicians guilty in many cases.
Rep. Kwon Young-se, a five-term lawmaker of the main opposition People Power Party, accused the ruling Democratic Party-led parliament of abusing its authority.
“It is a grave abuse of the National Assembly’s authority for lawmakers with a mere four-year term to abolish a system that is over 70 years old despite the public’s opposition,” Kwon noted in a Facebook post.
Kwon also said the revision carries unconstitutional elements as it restricts the prosecution’s power to request arrest warrants.
