Democratic Party's Legislation and Judiciary Committee rams through hearing report alone
PPP cancels Land and Industry committee sessions in retaliation
'Even PSPD opposes him' vs. 'cheap political attack'
Lee Hyung-il's report adopted with bipartisan agreement
The political standoff between the Democratic Party of Korea and the People Power Party over the nomination of Kim Seung-won as minister of justice has spilled beyond the confirmation hearing into a broader parliamentary confrontation.
After the Democratic Party moved to adopt Kim's confirmation hearing report without PPP support, the PPP retaliated by canceling scheduled plenary sessions of standing committees it chairs. The clash over Kim's nomination has begun to ripple out to other cabinet nominees in President Lee Jae Myung's second-round reshuffle.
Of the standing committees scheduled to take up confirmation hearing reports Thursday, those chaired by Democratic Party lawmakers — the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, the Finance and Economy Planning Committee and the National Defense Committee — proceeded with their plenary sessions as planned.
Each committee had on its agenda the adoption of confirmation hearing reports for Kim; Lee Hyung-il, nominee for deputy prime minister and minister of economy and finance; and Kang Shin-cheol, nominee for minister of national defense.
The Finance and Economy Planning Committee, which held its plenary session first, adopted Lee's confirmation hearing report. Committee Chair Cho Seung-rae, a Democratic Party lawmaker, said the report had been drawn up in consultation with negotiators from both parties, focusing on issues raised during the hearing and Lee's responses to them.
However, the PPP included a statement of opposition to Lee's nomination in the report. Bae Jun-young, the PPP's lead negotiator on the committee, said many concerns had been raised about Lee, as reflected in the hearing report, but added that he recognized the need for a policy coordinator to quickly reverse the struggling economy.
The clash over Kim's report was far sharper. PPP members of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee boycotted the plenary session, with one member saying there had been no proper consultation on adopting the report despite Kim's shortcomings being widely known. The Democratic Party adopted Kim's confirmation hearing report without the PPP.
The fallout spread to other committees. The Industry, Trade, Resources, SMEs and Startups Committee and the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee — both chaired by PPP lawmakers — canceled their scheduled plenary sessions. The two panels had been set to take up confirmation hearing reports for Lee So-young, nominee for minister of SMEs and startups, and Hong Ji-sun, nominee for minister of land, infrastructure and transport, respectively.
The PPP said the Democratic Party had been steamrolling post-hearing procedures for Kim and other nominees and responded by suspending committee business. The PPP's floor leadership decided to halt meetings of committees it chairs after the Democratic Party signaled it would push through Kim's report unilaterally at the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, according to sources familiar with the matter.
PPP Floor Leader Jeong Jeom-sik, speaking at a supreme council meeting, criticized the Democratic Party for pressing ahead with Kim's nomination despite opposition from People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a civic group generally sympathetic to the progressive camp. "Everyone knows the real reason for forcing through this appointment lies in dropping the criminal charges against President Lee Jae Myung," he said.
Jeong also said the nominees for the defense, finance, land and SMEs portfolios would all qualify as real estate speculators under the Democratic Party's own standards. "This is the left's characteristic sense of entitlement — strict with the public, lenient with their own — on full display," he said.
The Democratic Party said it would press ahead with adopting the remaining confirmation hearing reports regardless of the PPP boycott. Democratic Party floor spokesperson Jeon Eun-su told reporters Thursday that the party had no special countermeasure planned and that proceedings at the Legislation and Judiciary Committee and the National Defense Committee would continue as scheduled.
The Democratic Party maintained that Thursday's committee sessions had been arranged through prior consultation with the PPP. A staffer in the office of a National Defense Committee member said the two parties' negotiators had agreed to hold a plenary session to adopt the confirmation hearing report before a full Assembly vote.
On the PPP side, however, there were signs of confusion in the committees it chairs. A staffer in the office of an Industry, Trade, Resources, SMEs and Startups Committee member said the panel had been set to adopt Lee So-young's confirmation hearing report but was stopped by the PPP.
Democratic Party Floor Leader Han Byung-do said the PPP had spent the two-day hearings obstructing rather than scrutinizing the nominees. "The PPP wasted time that should have been used to assess policy competence with personal attacks, abusive language and shouting," he said. "Turning allegations into crimes and launching personal attacks through mockery is not vetting — it is a cheap political attack."
Cheong Wa Dae is expected to review each nominee's confirmation hearing report before deciding on appointments. Some observers believe President Lee will sign off on all the nominations despite the ongoing controversies surrounding each candidate. A Cheong Wa Dae official said the hearings appeared to have addressed the key concerns to a significant degree and that the decisions would be made with those findings in mind.
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