The Democratic Party of Korea said on the 2nd that it would support the smooth rollout of a new criminal justice system as the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and the Public Prosecution Agency began operations. The party pushed back directly against the People Power Party's warnings of a policing vacuum, saying the opposition appeared to be "hoping the country collapses."
Party leader Kim Min-seok told a Supreme Council meeting at the National Assembly that the party would "swiftly overhaul and establish the relevant laws and organizational structures so that the new criminal justice system of strict separation between investigation and prosecution can take root." Kim said the party would "raise the police force's investigative capacity and also systematize checks and controls over police investigations," adding that it would "swiftly root out abuses such as shielding one's own, burying cases, closing them without authorization, concealing and fabricating evidence, leaking investigative information and violating personal data."
Floor leader Han Byung-do said the People Power Party "claims an era of a policing vacuum is coming, where perpetrators run free and victims hide. They seem to be hoping the country collapses. They are completely wrong." He added that there would be "no paradise for criminals, and no era of a policing hell or a policing vacuum will ever arrive." Han said that "what is disappearing is the unchecked power of prosecutors who held both investigative and indictment authority in one hand and wielded it at will — the state's investigative function is perfectly intact," and told the opposition not to "stoke public anxiety with deceitful talk."
Supreme Council member Seo Mi-hwa also said she would "completely sever the potential of political prosecutors, for whom fabricated investigations and forced, trumped-up indictments were the means of eliminating political rivals." She asked: "I want to ask the People Power Party, whose own leader is a former judge — are you incapable of any constructive discussion that would let the new criminal justice system take root, other than fueling public anxiety?"
Supreme Council member Lee Sung-yoon, who is seen as a hard-liner on prosecution reform, said he would "see through to the end the prosecution reform of separating personnel and settling past wrongs, along with the institutional separation of investigation and prosecution that we promised to the public and to party members." Political observers read the remarks as another expression of discontent from Lee, who had voiced opposition to Kim Ji-yong, the nominee to head the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency.
