Promulgation of Special Prosecutor Bill on Fabricated Prosecutions Delayed a Week at Cabinet Meeting

The People Power Party moved its Supreme Council meeting to the front of the presidential office.

As the promulgation process gains momentum for the "Special Prosecutor Act on Fact-Finding into Fabricated Investigations and Prosecutions" (the fabricated-prosecution special prosecutor bill), which passed the National Assembly plenary session on the 6th led by the Democratic Party, interparty conflict is spreading both inside and outside the Assembly. On the morning of the 9th at 9 a.m., the People Power Party held an on-site Supreme Council meeting in front of the presidential office in Seoul and declared it would escalate its fight if the bill passes the Cabinet meeting. A relay of one-person protests was also held the same day.

Cabinet Meeting Delayed Promulgation by a Week

The presidential office announced on the 9th that the promulgation bill for the special prosecutor act would not be tabled at the 48th Cabinet meeting chaired by President Lee Jae-myung on the 10th, but at next week's meeting. According to the presidential office, the Cabinet meeting schedule had already been set on the afternoon of the 6th, and since that coincided with the bill's passage in the Assembly, the tabling date was pushed back not by a day but by about a week. In effect, the government has left a roughly one-week buffer on an issue over which the ruling and opposition parties are at odds.

It remains unclear whether this period is a purely administrative procedure or the result of a political calculation. However, with the People Power Party boycotting budget deliberations, including at the Legislation and Judiciary Committee's budget subcommittee, as a pressure tactic, the possibility that the delayed promulgation could be leveraged as a bargaining chip in interparty negotiations is hard to rule out. The Democratic Party sharply criticized the People Power Party's absence from budget deliberations, saying it had "taken livelihoods hostage over the fabricated-prosecution special prosecutor act."

The Battle Lines Over the Bill

The Democratic Party pushed the bill through on the logic that normalizing the rule of law requires investigating the prosecution's practices of intentional investigation and prosecution. Justice Minister nominee Lee Yong-chul, asked on the 9th whether the charges against President Lee Jae-myung should be withdrawn, sidestepped an answer, saying, "The focus should be solely on uncovering the truth," and "It is desirable that everything else follow the law and principles." This suggests that if the special prosecutor's office is established, political scrutiny—not judicial judgment—will inevitably accompany the direction of the investigation.

The People Power Party is pushing back, defining the bill itself as an attempt to turn the investigative body into a tool of a particular political faction. The slogan raised at that day's Supreme Council meeting in front of the presidential office—"The president, too, must go to prison if he does wrong"—raises questions about the bill's scope of application and the special prosecutor's independence, while also reading as a counterattack against the ruling party's leadership. The People Power Party has pledged a high-intensity struggle beyond the budget boycott if the bill passes the Cabinet meeting.

Voices are divided even within civil society. On the 9th, the family of Lee Dae-jun, a Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official shot dead by North Korean troops off the Yellow Sea in 2020, demanded that the fabricated-prosecution special prosecutor act be scrapped and state resources devoted instead to clarifying the "fabricated defection" suspicions. From the family's perspective, uncovering the truth of the shooting is more urgent than a reinvestigation of the incident from a previous administration. Meanwhile, the comprehensive special prosecutor's office is already conducting separate fact-finding into the prosecution and investigative agencies—seeking a five-year prison sentence for former Fire Agency chief Heo Seok-gon over suspicions of cutting power and water to media outlets during the martial law episode—which serves as another complicating variable in the debate over the special prosecutor act's necessity.

Governance Held Hostage: Livelihood Budgets at Stake

The most immediate damage is expected to hit the budget. People Power Party lawmakers on the Legislation and Judiciary Committee boycotted the committee's budget subcommittee on the 9th, making their future participation conditional. With the deadline for processing next year's budget looming, a shutdown of committee deliberations would inevitably disrupt budget planning for the relevant ministries. That is why the Democratic Party is fighting back with its "livelihoods hostage" framing.

Structurally, this standoff is one where the executive, ruling party, opposition, and judiciary are all entangled at once over the passage of a single bill. Once the promulgation bill is tabled at next week's Cabinet meeting, presidential approval and promulgation are effectively assured, and the People Power Party is preparing a sweeping move spanning the budget session and the broader political crisis of impeachments and investigations.

Schedule and Outlook

In the short term, whether the bill is tabled at next week's Cabinet meeting is the pivotal moment. If things proceed on the schedule announced by the presidential office, the recommendation and appointment of a special prosecutor candidate will immediately become the next point of contention. Conflict between the parties is highly likely to recur over the scope of the special prosecutor's investigation and the selection process. Whether the People Power Party returns to budget deliberations is expected to remain a bargaining chip even after the special prosecutor act is promulgated.

The longer the tug-of-war among the branches of power drags on, the greater the cost in the form of a governance vacuum. Observers note that the very fact that uncovering the truth and processing the livelihood budget appear at odds is proof that political trust in legislative and administrative procedures has hit rock bottom. The next point to watch is whether the special prosecutor's investigation, once launched, can operate within the bounds of law and principle.