[Anchor]
The Democratic Party, which pushed through the amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act, claims that the judiciary system has been successfully transformed to center around the public. Today (August 3), the party even held a public reporting session to actively promote the changes, but a heated debate erupted within the party over some remarks mentioning former President Roh Moo-hyun.
Reporter Park Jae-yeon has the details.
[Reporter]
The Democratic Party held a public reporting session this afternoon under the title "A Fairer Criminal Justice System."
Coming just three days after the amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act passed the National Assembly, the party explained its follow-up measures, stating that it has created institutional mechanisms to strengthen victims' rights.
[Han Byung-do / Democratic Party Floor Leader: We will seamlessly prepare the organization, personnel, and budget, and closely inspect case transfers and inter-agency cooperation systems.]
The party maintains that it has also strengthened controls over the investigative process to prevent police from "burying cases."
[Seo Young-kyo / Democratic Party Lawmaker: In cases such as searches and seizures, body cams will be worn, and video recordings will be made so that not a single place, not a single case, and not a single piece of evidence is missed.]
The party launched a public opinion campaign as concerns continued to be raised by some figures in academia and the legal community; however, a debate regarding former President Roh Moo-hyun also broke out within the Democratic Party.
Following a social media post by former President Moon Jae-in regarding the amendment, which read, "Prosecutorial reform is a long-standing reform task that took its first step under the Roh Moo-hyun administration," former party leader Chung Cheng-rae, lawmaker Kim Yong-min, and others also linked the amendment to the late former President Roh. In response, Lawmaker Kwak Sang-un, who is the son-in-law of former President Roh, publicly pushed back.
Lawmaker Kwak, who was the sole dissenting vote from the Democratic Party during the National Assembly plenary vote on the amendment, explicitly named former President Moon and former leader Chung, firing back by saying, "Former President Roh never pushed to completely strip the prosecution of its investigative powers to give the police a monopoly on investigations." He directly criticized them, telling them "not to distort 'Roh Moo-hyun politics'."
Pro-myeong lawmaker Kim Nam-hee also chimed in without specifying a target for criticism, saying, "What former President Roh demonstrated was not putting forward only extreme arguments." Differences of opinion within the Democratic Party persist even after the passage of the Criminal Procedure Act amendment in the National Assembly.
(Video reporting: Oh Young-chun, Kim Yong-woo | Video editing: Wi Won-yang | Design: Han Heung-soo, Lee Jun-ho)
※
Copying, redistribution, and unauthorized use in AI training are strictly prohibited.