Seoul, Democrats want to reform justice before Yoon

A few days before taking office, the outgoing parliament is expected to vote on a law limiting the powers of the attorney general, the post held until a few months ago by the new president. In the background is the fear that the new political course will rekindle the cycle of judicial investigations. But conservatives are appealing to the Constitutional Court.

Seoul (AsiaNews) - There is great confusion in Seoul, where in recent weeks politics has been in turmoil. Not only because of the imminent inauguration on May 10 of conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol, but also because of the heated debate that has generated the justice reform project. The proposal, formulated by outgoing President Moon Jae-in's Democratic Party, is now in parliament and could be approved as early as Tuesday, May 3.

Although the project to reduce the powers of the attorney general was a dream in the drawer long guarded by the current Democratic administration, Yoon's presidential election victory last March 9 greatly accelerated events.

In South Korea the office of the Attorney General traditionally plays a very important role in the public life of the country. On the contrary, in many occasions it has been pointed out as an undue influence in South Korean politics: only during the last five years two former presidents have been indicted and some ministers have ended up in the prosecutor's sights. Now that Moon is preparing to leave the presidency, Democrats fear that the new conservative political course could reignite the cycle of judicial investigations, which characterizes the political conflict in Seoul, and bring to jail some members of the democratic government. Yoon himself has said he favors a corruption trial against Moon and the Democrats' presidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung.

In fact, the Democrats' proposed reform would gradually strip the attorney general of his investigative powers. After weeks of controversy, Democrats and conservatives had reached an agreement last Friday to allow the Attorney General to still conduct investigations into corruption and economic crimes until a new agency relieves him of his duties. However, over the weekend, the Conservative Party reversed itself, defeating the compromise just reached also in view of some polls that indicated public opposition to the reform.

The Democratic Party, however, decided to continue on its way, bringing the two amendments that constitute the reform to parliament. Faced with a solid democratic majority (171 seats out of 300), the conservative opposition resorted to speeches by their MPs. However, the majority has adopted a procedural stratagem to close the debate and circumvent the filibuster: the first amendment will be voted on without debate on Saturday 30 April and the second will be voted on Tuesday 3 May. If all goes according to plan, on Tuesday the reform approved by the parliament could arrive on Moon's table for promulgation less than a week before Yoon takes office, who would instead apply his veto.

The conservatives are aware that they cannot win the parliamentary battle and have already begun to move on other fronts. On Wednesday the conservatives announced that they have submitted a request to the Constitutional Court to suspend the reform due to procedural irregularities during parliamentary approval. Similar action has also been taken by the U.S. Attorney's office, which has already begun preparing its own task force to oppose the reform.

The diatribe between President Yoon's conservatives and the Democratic-majority parliament leaves few glimmers of political cooperation in a country as divided as South Korea is today. Justice reform will reveal what level of political confrontation is taking place in Seoul.