Fewer than 30 days remain until October 2, when prosecutors lose their power to conduct supplementary investigations. Many lawmakers within the Democratic Party sympathize with the broader cause of prosecution reform but worry that the change removes a judicial check capable of correcting flawed police investigations. One Democratic Party lawmaker I met recently said, "It is painful that even when you can plainly see it is poison, things can only change after several people have eaten it and died," adding, "Most of the public does not want this. Hasn't the party leaned too heavily toward its hard-line members?"
Others voiced concern that power is being concentrated in the police. Another lawmaker cited the position of Rep. Kwak Sang-eon, the only Democratic Party lawmaker to vote against abolishing the supplementary investigation power, noting that "the only way to control state power is to have institutions check one another."
There is a more fundamental problem: whether such a decision actually matches what the public wants. Debate over the supplementary investigation power gained sudden momentum as it coincided with the Democratic Party's national convention. As candidates for party leadership competed to pledge abolition in a bid to win over party members, cautious voices inside the party lost any place to stand. In effect, a contest in ideological purity favored by hard-line members took precedence over the long-term design of the national judicial system or the needs of the public. A Democratic Party official said, "If we had been heading into a general election or a presidential election, which target the entire public rather than a party convention, the legislative process would have unfolded in a completely different way."
Signs that most of the public is uneasy about scrapping the supplementary investigation power have already surfaced repeatedly. In a Gallup Korea survey of 1,000 adults nationwide conducted from the 11th to the 13th of last month, 50% said the abolition was wrong, double the 27% who called it a good decision. Women's groups, disability organizations and progressive circles spoke out against the change, citing concerns about investigative delays and gaps in relief for victims, but the Democratic Party did not listen. In effect, a ruling party that is supposed to represent the entire public restructured the national judicial system according to the will of its members rather than the will of the people, all under the banner of "party sovereignty."
Even at this late stage, the Democratic Party must move beyond the framework of party sovereignty toward popular sovereignty. A party earns the name of a public party only when it looks after the rights and interests of the entire public, not a group of zealous members. The more the party buries itself in an internal contest of ideological purity and allows the gap with general public sentiment to widen, the further it drifts from trust as a party capable of governing. With tasks still piled up, from constitutional reform to a special counsel law on fabricated indictments, it must listen more closely to the voice of the public.
