Let’s “test” the court … Kang-wook Choi, the accused, entered the judiciary

Kangwook Choi

The controversy arose when Choi Kang-wook, a member of the Open Democratic Party, entered the Legislative Judicial Committee of the National Assembly (last month 30). This is due to the point where a conflict of interest occurs because it is in criminal proceedings.

The Judicial Committee is a permanent committee with judicial authorities such as courts and prosecutors as audited bodies. It has the power to control and monitor judicial institutions and deliberate on the budget. A judicial commissioner who has the right to circumvent the bill and budget may also say to the sitting Supreme Justice, the head of the court’s administration, “Please ask him to save himself.” (Park Beom-gye, Party member Democrat).

Representative Choi was charged with granting false internships to former Justice Minister Cho Kook’s son (obstruction of work). The accused accused of personal corruption has been transferred to a position where he can influence the prosecution and the courts that govern the outcome of the trial. This is the result of the approval of the Speaker of the National Assembly, Park Byung-seok, and the ruling party that tolerated it.

Representative Kim Jin-ae from the same party, who resigned from the judiciary to show Choi, said on Facebook on the 1st: “As soon as Representative Kang-wook Choi appears as the judiciary, the conservative media attack with conflicts of interests at the same time. Who made the accused? “, Public. It is unfair because it is the prosecution that they target for the “reform” that made Choi the defendant, and it is argued that the conflict of interest is also a political offensive by opposing forces. Representative Choi also protested against the opposition party that day, saying, “Come down and spit.” During the trial in June, he suddenly rose from the defendant’s seat and demanded that the trial be stopped because there is a time for a press conference.

This is in contrast to the appearance of the National Assembly in the past. When members of the National Assembly are concerned about a conflict of judicial interest or property, the corresponding standing committee has been avoided. Kim Hyun, who was involved in the assault on a surrogate gentleman from the survivors of the Sewol ferry disaster in October 2014, at the time a member of the New Democratic Politics Association (now the Democratic Party), was replaced by the Committee existing Security Administration as head of foreign traffic. Moon Hee-sang, then chairman of the party’s emergency countermeasures, said: “The state affairs audit of the National Police Agency is not performed, but it is not correct that Representative Kim, who is being investigated, is auditing the subject. Of the investigation”.

In February 2017, the Democratic Party demanded the resignation after Kim Jin-tae, then a member of the Free Korea Party (now the power of the people), who was the opposition secretary of the judicial committee, refused to cooperate with the prosecution of the bill. (Park Wan-ju, then vice president of the Democratic Party at the time) raised the reason. It was also the Democratic Party that demanded the resignation of Representative Kwon Seong-dong of the Korean Liberal Party, who was involved in the suspicion of contracting corruption in Gangwon Land in February 2018, and the resignation of Representative Dong-yeol Yeom as a member of the Special Committee for Judicial Reform of the National Assembly. When the chairman of the Korean Liberal Party Judicial Committee, Yoo Sang-gyu, who was accused of the ‘rapid collapse of the National Assembly’ last year, said: “(This case is) a matter of policy, so it is not something the prosecution will touch. ” They protested by filing a complaint with the Special Ethics Committee.

The Democratic Party, which was like that, is silent about Choi’s appearance in the judiciary. Ho-jung Yoon, chairman of the Judicial Committee of the Democratic Party, said “welcome” to Choi, who attended the judicial committee on the 30th of last month. The Speaker of the National Assembly Park Byung-seok said the day before (on the 29th of the previous month): “Let’s not fix the strap under the Oyat tree” and commented on the revision of the Law of the National Assembly to avoid conflicts of interests.

Some politicians are suspicious of the Democratic Party’s intention to use Congressman Choi as a “knife.” A reelected member of the Democratic Party said: “Wouldn’t the Open Democratic Party be a pretty radical and radical argument that is onerous for the ruling party regarding ‘legislative reform’?”

When Congressman Choi submitted an application to the judicial committee at the beginning of the opening of the 21st National Assembly, he protested that it was “a very inappropriate question and an inappropriate interpretation to ask whether he intended to influence the trial.” However, in a situation where charges of personal corruption have not been lifted, the question of whether to leave the fish to the cat is an unwritten rule of the National Assembly. Representative Choi’s “dream” of “I want to do my part on the judicial committee” is not too late to dream after the charges are dropped.

Reporter Ha Jun-ho [email protected]