"Groveling to Lee Hwa-young" vs. "Investigate Han Dong-hoon Document Leak"

[Anchor]

At the parliamentary audit of the Ministry of Justice, the ruling and opposition parties clashed from the start over how the proceedings were conducted. The People Power Party launched an offensive over the camp of former Gyeonggi Province vice governor for peace Lee Hwa-young publicly demanding parole, while the Democratic Party demanded that the Ministry of Justice thoroughly investigate allegations of investigative document leaks involving independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon.

Reporter Son Hyeong-an reports.

[Reporter]

The parliamentary audit of the Ministry of Justice was conducted by the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

Clashes lasted for more than 40 minutes over how the Supreme Court audit was handled on October 6, with complaints that remarks by Committee Chair Seo Young-kyo of the Democratic Party were excessively long and unfairly restricted the speaking rights of opposition lawmakers.

[Kwak Kyu-taek / People Power Party Lawmaker: "We ordered 18 servings of meat. Shouldn't each person eat one serving? One person had six servings!"]

[Seo Young-kyo / Chair of National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee (Democratic Party Lawmaker): "Isn't that turning into a personal attack?"]

In the main questioning session that began behind schedule, the opposition targeted the Ministry of Justice's Prosecution Future Committee, launched last June, asking whether an investigation into the abuse of prosecutorial power was effectively a preliminary move to drop charges in cases related to President Lee Jae-myung.

[Kim Min-jeon / People Power Party Lawmaker: "If you say you will review whether to maintain indictments for cases currently on trial, that means you intend to intervene in the ongoing trials, does it not?"]

[Lee Jin-soo / Vice Minister of Justice: "Former Minister Jung Sung-ho also made it clear that the Ministry of Justice has no intention of ordering the dropping of indictments through directing specific cases."]

Regarding the fact that the side of former Gyeonggi Province vice governor for peace Lee Hwa-young, whose prison sentence was finalized over the illicit remittance to North Korea case, demanded parole from the presidential office, the People Power Party also went on the attack, asking whether ruling party lawmakers were repeatedly visiting him out of fear that former Vice Governor Lee might speak out and give testimony unfavorable to President Lee.

[Joo Jin-woo / People Power Party Lawmaker: "Lawmakers from the Democratic Party are almost groveling whenever Lee Hwa-young comes up, and they are constantly paying visits to him."]

The Democratic Party countered that it was "clearly a fabricated indictment" by the prosecution.

[Seo Young-kyo / Chair of National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee (Democratic Party Lawmaker): "Regarding former Vice Governor Lee's case, the special parliamentary investigation committee has already shown that it was a fabricated investigation and fabricated indictment."]

Vice Minister of Justice Lee Jin-soo replied that they had never received a parole request and that the requirements were not met.

The Democratic Party focused its fire on the alleged leak of investigative records involving independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon, repeatedly urging a compulsory investigation.

[Park Ji-won / Democratic Party Lawmaker: "It has been more than a month. Are you still just verifying it?"]

[Lee Jin-soo / Vice Minister of Justice: "I understand that the person responsible has not been specifically identified."]

Vice Minister Lee answered that the facts and truth would be verified through the prosecution agency.

(Video by Lee Seung-hwan and Shin Dong-hwan | Video Editing by Nam Il)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.