PPP boycotts judiciary committee proceedings over special counsel bill
PPP lawmaker Park Hyeung-soo, center, and others announce a boycott of all National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee proceedings at the National Assembly, Monday. Yonhap
People Power Party (PPP) lawmakers on the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee on Monday announced a boycott of all committee proceedings, including budget reviews, in protest of the recent passage of a bill calling for a special counsel investigation into allegations of fabricated indictments against President Lee Jae Myung and others.
Park Hyeung-soo, the committee's vice chair, and other PPP lawmakers made the announcement at a news conference, saying that, as conscientious members of the National Assembly, they could not sit down and conduct budget reviews alongside Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) lawmakers who had undermined the rule of law by pushing through the special counsel bill.
"The DPK pushed through the special counsel bill aimed at dropping charges against the president in just three days after forcibly ending the opposition party's filibuster through a vote. It would violate the constitutional principle of equality before the law if a special counsel were to manufacture grounds for nullifying indictments against the president, enabling him to evade legal accountability without standing trial," the lawmakers said.
"Now that the bill has been passed, there are few means of resistance available to us as a minority party. All we can do is resist using every means available within the parliament," they said, urging Lee to veto the bill at a Cabinet meeting.