Ruling party: 'Look at police commanders who joined insurrection'

Opposition: 'Democratic Party and government piled power onto police'

Parties clash over responsibility for police leadership vacuum

Acting Korean National Police Agency Commissioner Yu Jae-seong (far right) and National Investigation Headquarters Chief Hong Seok-gi, along with other senior police officials, offer a public apology at a police leadership meeting held Wednesday at Government Complex Seoul in Jongno-gu, Seoul, over the falsely closed missing-persons case in Jeju. [Yonhap]
Acting Korean National Police Agency Commissioner Yu Jae-seong (far right) and National Investigation Headquarters Chief Hong Seok-gi, along with other senior police officials, offer a public apology at a police leadership meeting held Wednesday at Government Complex Seoul in Jongno-gu, Seoul, over the falsely closed missing-persons case in Jeju. [Yonhap]

The ruling and opposition parties continued to trade blame Thursday over a string of controversies surrounding shoddy police investigations. The Democratic Party of Korea blamed the Yoon Suk Yeol administration for the current police leadership vacuum and vowed to push ahead with police reform, while the People Power Party said the controversies had exposed flaws in police investigative capacity and oversight mechanisms, and called for a renewed debate on restoring prosecutors' supplementary investigative powers.

People Power Party Chief Spokesperson Choi Bo-yun, citing the falsely closed missing-persons case in Jeju and the Jang Yun-gi case in Gwangju, criticized the Democratic Party and the government Thursday, saying it was they who "abolished the prosecution itself in the name of eliminating the abuses of investigative power and funneled that authority to the police."

Choi added that when cases suited their own interests, the same parties "create yet another all-powerful, command-driven institution — the special prosecutor — holding both investigative and indictment powers." She said that "if they truly care about the public, they must first restore the prosecutorial supplementary investigative powers they erased."

Rep. Kang Myeong-gu, the opposition's floor whip on the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee, said on SBS Radio Thursday that "the public is anxious that shoddy investigations, delayed investigations and case cover-ups by police will only increase, even though supplementary investigative powers existed," and questioned whether police investigative capacity could be trusted.

Kang said the opposition had "no way to stop" legislation because the majority party was "simply forcing all bills through," and called for greater scrutiny of the gap in oversight mechanisms for police investigations.

The ruling Democratic Party, meanwhile, focused on internal reform of the police organization. The party formed a police reform task force Wednesday and launched discussions on institutional improvements to strengthen investigative capacity and accountability. Party leader Kim Min-seok said he had already called for police reform plans "quite early" when he was prime minister, believing police reform to be "a very important matter" even as prosecution reform was already under way at the time.

Kim drew a line between the recent investigative failures and the opposition's argument linking them to the abolition of supplementary investigative powers. "The false closure of the Jeju missing-persons case has drawn public outrage, but contrary to what some are saying, it happened while prosecutorial supplementary investigative powers were still in effect," he said.

The blame game also extended to the police leadership vacuum. Democratic Party floor spokesperson Lee Ju-hee pushed back against People Power Party Floor Leader Jeong Jeom-sik, who had pointed to the vacancy in the police commissioner post as a cause of delays in police reform. Lee said the party should "first look back at Yoon Suk Yeol's insurrection and the responsibility of the police commanders who took part in it."

Lee said senior police appointments — including officers at the rank of senior superintendent general and superintendent general — had "proceeded without a hitch" since the Lee Jae Myung government took office, and criticized the People Power Party for "turning a blind eye to the consequences of the insurrection they created while shifting the blame onto the current government," calling it a case of blaming the victim.


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