DP chief Lee vows to waive protections to prove 'insolence' of prosecutors

Democratic Party's leader Lee Jae-myung makes a speech at the National Assembly on Monday. [YONHAP]

Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung said he would waive his parliamentary protections against arrest and stand in front of a judge to prove the insolence of the prosecutors.

“As I have so far, I will respond to the summoning [by the prosecutors’ office] 10 times or even 100 times,” Lee said on Monday during a speech at the National Assembly. “If an arrest warrant is requested, I will personally show up for a warrant review and demonstrate the prosecutors’ insolence.”

Lee accused the Yoon Suk Yeol government of oppression, which he said would "destroy society instantly."

“When we should be competing in solving problems of the livelihoods of the people, the country is failing because the government and the People Power Party [PPP] are obsessed with destroying its opposition,” Lee argued. “The people already see through this.”

“A year since President Yoon was sworn into office, the government is using all its resources on cajoling or threatening people involved in my case to make up crimes against me using the full force of the police and the prosecutors’ office,” Lee added.

“The only strategy of the PPP is to frame me for bullet-proofing myself against arrest while hiding their incompetence,” he said. “The prosecutors’ office, which has conducted over 300 search and seizure operations against me, continues its sweeping investigation into former and incumbent Gyeonggi government employees."

He added that the PPP aimed to stand him in front of cameras at the prosecutors' office and create internal divisions within the DP through an arrest warrant.

He said he will not give the PPP such an opportunity.

“I will not tolerate their attempts against me,” Lee said.

The DP leader is currently indicted in 12 cases, including election law violations, breach of trust involving the controversial Daejang-dong development project and bribery involving corporate sponsorship of the city of Seongnam’s football club. All those charges relate to actions Lee took when he was Seongnam's mayor.

Some observers speculate that Lee ran for a seat in the National Assembly just two months after losing his 2022 presidential bid against Yoon to gain protection against an arrest warrant.

His motives were particularly questioned as he ran to represent Incheon’s Gyeyang B district in a by-election, an area with which he had few previous connections, having begun his career in faraway Seongnam.

The Incheon seat was vacant after former DP leader Song Yong-gil gave up his constituency to run for Seoul mayor, which also came as a surprise as Song’s political base was Incheon where he also served as the city’s mayor.

Under the existing law, an arrest warrant against a sitting lawmaker requires the approval of the National Assembly. The system was enacted to prevent political prosecutions of lawmakers by Korea's authoritarian governments of the past.

Even if an arrest motion is approved, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the lawmaker will be arrested as the decision to arrest the accused is made by the court.

During his presidential campaign, Lee argued that he would not hide behind any protections, including against arrest warrants for his alleged involvement in the Daejang-dong scandal, news of which surfaced during the race.

Yet after Yoon took over the government last year, the DP chief had refused to stand before the judge to be reviewed for an arrest warrant, claiming that the ongoing investigations by the prosecutors’ office were all setups and part of a political scheme by the Yoon government, which is out to destroy him and the Democratic Party.

Although an arrest motion was submitted to the National Assembly for a vote on Feb. 27, Lee narrowly escaped.

Through a secret ballot, 139 lawmakers voted to consent to Lee's arrest and 138 against it during a plenary session of the DP-controlled National Assembly. There were nine abstentions and 11 invalid votes.

For an arrest motion to pass, it requires support from more than half of a quorum of lawmakers. The Feb. 27 was 10 votes short of being passed.

Yet the results came as a surprise as Lee, as the head of the party, should have easily gained the majority votes considering that the DP held 169 seats out of 299 seats at the time, while the PPP held just 115 seats.

Under the current parliamentary session, four arrest warrant requests were made against DP lawmakers including Lee. However, none have passed while an arrest motion against a PPP lawmaker was passed.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]