The main opposition Liberty Korea Party on Tuesday ratcheted up tension with the ruling camp over Monday’s passage of a bill on a new agency to investigate corruption by senior public officials.

It said all 108 lawmakers of the party would resign from the National Assembly in protest of the “unilateral” handling of the motion.

“All the (Liberty Korea Party) lawmakers cannot hold their anger at the latest railroading of the bill following two bills that were rammed through the parliament. Such outrage led us to reach a consensus on giving up our seats,” Liberty Korea Party Floor Leader Rep. Shim Jae-chul told reporters.
He said the party’s leadership would discuss how to handle the resignations of the lawmakers. 

In a vote boycotted by the Liberty Korea Party members Monday evening, the National Assembly passed the ruling Democratic Party-led proposal for the new investigative entity, a key aspect of President Moon Jae-in’s prosecution reform drive.

The bill was passed by a 160-14 vote, with three abstentions. The Democratic Party has 129 lawmakers, less than the required majority of 148, but it garnered votes from minor parties.

Claiming that the bill is unconstitutional, the conservative party plans to file a petition against it with the Constitutional Court.

Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl said Tuesday he would push for ceaseless internal reform in his first public message after the bill’s passage. The prosecution had publicly voiced its opposition in the runup to the parliamentary vote.

“As the prosecution for the people, let’s do our best to prevent the weakening of the country’s responses to corruption and livelihood-related crimes,” the top prosecutor said on New Year’s Eve.

The bill allows the new anti-corruption unit to investigate high-ranking public officials, including the president, prime minister, lawmakers, top court justices and prosecutors. The agency will be given the right to directly indict police, prosecutors and judges.

Under the bill, the prosecution is required to report to the new agency all information on suspected crimes by senior officials as soon as it obtains it, and to hand over the case to the agency if it requests for it.

A seven-member committee will be formed to recommend the chief of the agency, and the president will appoint one of the two candidates approved by six panel members.

The agency, comprising 25 special prosecutors and investigators, is expected to be set up around July.

Critics say the new agency, filled with pro-government figures, will be politically exploited to target the president’s political opponents and will have control over the prosecution and police.

Shim said the new agency will conceal corruption by those close to the president.

The idea of establishing a separate agency to investigate senior officials was introduced in 1996, when a progressive civic group called on lawmakers to push for related legislation. It was also an election campaign pledge of the late former President Roh Moo-hyun in 2002.

The presidential office welcomed the bill’s passage Monday, vowing to help the agency complete its mission of checks and balances on powerful people and organizations.

“This is a historic moment in light of the people’s aspiration (for prosecution reform) and the democratic value of checks and balances,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson Ko Min-jung said in a statement.

Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, who stepped down in October amid a corruption scandal involving his family, said he was happy to see the “irreversible” institutionalization of prosecution reform take place.

Cho, a key architect of Moon’s prosecution reform plans, wrote on Facebook on Monday that the bill brings “a critical change to an impregnable fortress of a system where only the prosecution had the right to indict since the Criminal Procedure Act was enacted in 1954.”

It was Cho’s first Facebook post in a month and half since the prosecution indicted his wife last month on 14 charges, including fraud.

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)