On the 23rd, the Democratic Party officially launched a group aiming to cancel the indictment of President Lee Jae-myung and to initiate a parliamentary investigation into the alleged manipulated prosecution by the political prosecutors of President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration. The meeting, called the “Meeting of Lawmakers for the Cancellation of Lee Jae-myung’s Indictment and the Promotion of a Parliamentary Investigation,” received participation from 105 Democratic Party lawmakers, making it the largest group of legislators within the party.
Sung-jun Park, who chaired the meeting, accused the Yoon administration’s prosecutors of fabricated indictments beyond simple investigations. He emphasized that cancelling the indictment isn’t about rescuing an individual but about uncovering the political background and external influences of the indictment through the parliamentary investigation. He advocated for revealing procedural illegitimacies, fabricated evidence, and manipulated testimonies involved in the case, striving for legislative measures to prevent recurrence. He hopes this will lead to the prosecutors deciding to cancel the indictment.
The group’s intention and formation have been met with differing opinions. Some see it as a step toward revealing the truth behind the manipulated prosecutions and completing judicial reforms. However, there is concern from inside and outside the political circle about the group potentially becoming a faction supporting Lee Jae-myung. These concerns led some, like lawmaker Byung-joo Kim, to withdraw from the group to avoid misunderstandings that it might be a factional gathering rather than a bipartisan effort.
Park asserted the necessity of the group as an operational component for the parliamentary investigation, dismissing concerns about factional motives as irrelevant to the group’s true aim of pursuing governmental inquiry into the alleged political manipulation of legal proceedings against President Lee.