The Reform Party on Monday urged President Lee Jae Myung to veto a proposed amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act that would strip prosecutors of their supplementary investigation powers, warning the bill would "disarm the vulnerable and let wrongdoers escape punishment."
Speaking at a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly, party leader Lee Jun-seok said that if the president does not exercise his veto, the law would stand not only as "a bill made by the Democratic Party" but also as "a bill the president failed to stop." He said abolishing the supplementary investigation powers amounted to "the president negating himself."
Lee invoked the late former President Roh Moo-hyun's experience with prosecutors, saying the Democratic Party's troubled history with the prosecution is "the private affair of a political faction," while the criminal justice system "belongs to all citizens — particularly ordinary people who cannot afford expensive lawyers, for whom it is a desperate means of finding justice."
He went on to say that President Lee had himself pledged to "suppress the strong and support the weak," adding, "The veto is the last line of defense. I ask the president to stand in that place."
Floor leader Cheon Ha-ram said that if President Lee does not use his veto, he "becomes an accomplice in abolishing the supplementary investigation powers — no different from the shameless Democratic Party presidential candidate Jung Chung-rae and lawmaker Kim Yong-min."
Cheon cited a comment left on Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Yong-min's social media account by Kim Jin-ju, the victim in the so-called Busan spinning-kick case, who wrote "Go to hell" after the bill passed. "A president who is blind to the suffering of the people and fixated only on avoiding prison time will surely go to hell," Cheon said.
He added that "the truly responsible path for the people is for President Lee to exercise his veto," and warned that if he does not, "I and the Reform Party will remember, challenge, and correct the Democratic Party's and President Lee's criminal procedure outrage to the very end."
mp1256@heraldcorp.com
