The People Power Party on Tuesday sharply criticized a string of controversies over shoddy police investigations, including the Jang Yun-gi case in Gwangju and the disappearance of Jang Mi-ran on Jeju Island.
PPP floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik, speaking at a floor strategy meeting at the National Assembly, said the discovery of four missing persons' bodies on Jeju Island over three consecutive days through Monday had shocked the public. "We must thoroughly investigate what is happening on Jeju Island and get to the truth," he said.
Jeong warned that the abolition of supplementary investigation rights and the dissolution of the Prosecution Service, both set to take effect in October, would lead to a surge in police cover-ups. "Once supplementary investigation rights are completely abolished and the Prosecution Service is dissolved in October, case burials will run rampant," he said. "It will be nearly impossible to uncover how cases were distorted. South Korea will reach a point where police can bury cases however they please."
He went on to say that the government and the ruling party had not only handed police a monopoly on investigative authority but had also turned the last remaining check — supplementary investigation rights — into what he called a "begging basket" to win votes at the Democratic Party's national convention.
Jeong urged the government and the ruling party to "immediately halt the destruction of the judicial system, including the abolition of supplementary investigation rights." He warned that failure to do so would make them "no different from accomplices in future police crimes — case burials, manipulation and cover-ups."
The PPP also leveled sharp criticism at the second comprehensive special prosecutor investigation, which concluded Monday, likening it to a "dust-shaking" probe that turned up nothing of substance.
"Special prosecutor Kwon Chang-young declared the closure of his office on Monday after bungling a reckless mass indictment spree," Jeong said. "What exactly was achieved by deploying a total of 251 personnel over 180 days?"
He said a deputy special prosecutor had appeared on YouTuber Kim Ou-joon's channel and boasted of delivering results, yet the outcome was "a loud, empty-can special prosecutor." "The dust-shaking probe ended with 58 indictments and 150 referrals to police," Jeong said. "If you shook everything out and still could not prove the charges, you should have closed the cases — instead, they dumped charges they themselves could not prove onto the police to handle."
PPP policy committee chairwoman Im Yi-ja also trained her fire on the ruling party. Im said the Democratic Party was reportedly pushing what she described as a "prosecution-withdrawal special prosecutor act" — a bill that would grant the power to drop charges in cases involving President Lee Jae Myung and effectively eliminate the trials altogether. She called it "an unprecedented idea in constitutional history."
"People's lives are on the edge of a cliff, battered by high prices, high interest rates, and soaring housing and living costs," Im said. "Small merchants and self-employed business owners are suffering deeply. The public is crying out for relief for their livelihoods, yet the Democratic Party, the moment the regular parliamentary session opened, is once again fixated solely on saving Lee Jae Myung."
Im issued a stern warning to the Democratic Party, saying that if it pushed through the unconstitutional prosecution-withdrawal special prosecutor act that would "destroy the judicial order," it would face "fierce public resistance and judgment."
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