The repeat of another sly tactic by the DP

Editorials

The repeat of another sly tactic by the DP

Published: 04 Sep. 2024, 20:07 Updated: 04 Sep. 2024, 23:54

The Democratic Party (DP) on Tuesday proposed its fourth special motion to investigate the tragic death of a Marine on a rescue mission last year. The past three motions submitted by the majority party were all aimed to give the opposition the right to recommend candidates for a special prosecutor. But this time, the party decided to first allow the chief justice of the Supreme Court to recommend four candidates and enable the DP and a minor opposition to compress the four candidates into two — and one of them is to be appointed as the special prosecutor by the president. But the problem is that the opposition has the right to ask the chief justice to replace the four candidates if the opposition doesn’t like them.

If the DP can veto the chief justice’s recommendations like this, they can’t reach the president as long as the DP dislikes them. That’s why the latest motion is criticized for being arrogant. How could the special prosecutor objectively look into the suspicious death of the Marine under such circumstances?

At first glance, the appointment method seems to be based on a third-party recommendation. But the idea of using the chief justice as the party’s sidekick in the investigation itself is hubris. We wonder how the DP could think of such a controversial way of appointing a special prosecutor. Does it really mean the party — only a part of the 300-member legislature — wants to veto any unfavorable candidates until the chief of the judiciary branch recommends candidates favored by the party?

The DP’s goal is obvious. It wants to divide the governing People Power Party (PPP) since its current PPP leader Han Dong-hoon pledged to submit a special motion on appointing a special prosecutor based on a third-party recommendation during the national convention to elect a new leader of the PPP last month. At that time, Han promised to submit a special motion regardless of the results of the ongoing investigations by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials into the suspicious death of the Marine. We cannot but link the DP’s move to the need for the party to win political gains.

It was Han who gave an excuse for the DP to submit such a nonsensical motion which can’t be accepted by the PPP and the government. People immediately know what the DP seeks to achieve through the appointment of an independent counsel. The DP leader stressed the need to improve people’s livelihoods in his meeting on Sunday with the PPP leader. We are dumbfounded at the repeat of another malicious tactic by the majority party.