Kim Youngjin: "Questions Over Whether Cho Hee-dae Probe Will Reveal Anything New... Separation of Powers Also Must Be Considered"

Cautious voices within the ruling party
Also raises concerns over unclear violations and separation of powers

On November 5, Kim Young-jin, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party of Korea, said there had been "questions about whether there would be anything new" regarding efforts to launch a parliamentary investigation into Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae, adding that its effectiveness and the separation of powers needed to be considered.

Appearing on MBC Radio's "Kim Jong-bae's Focus" that day, Kim discussed why the Democratic Party had postponed reporting its plan for the investigation into Chief Justice Cho to the National Assembly plenary session. "Over the past year, the chief justice's various activities, remarks and actions have all been discussed in parliamentary audits and at full meetings of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, so there were some questions about whether there would really be anything new," he said.

Kim Young-jin, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party of Korea. Yonhap News Agency

He continued, "When it is not clear what was illegal or wrong, is it appropriate, within the framework of the separation of powers, to subject the chief justice to a parliamentary investigation?" He said the decision was made with the intention of discussing the matter further while weighing various complex considerations, including "how the public would view these issues."

He offered his personal view, saying, "I don't think this is something that can be easily judged and decided."

Asked by the host whether the effort to launch the investigation could be interpreted as having been "put on hold indefinitely," he replied, "I only said that objective facts and more in-depth discussion were needed."

The Democratic Party had previously considered reporting its plan for the investigation into Chief Justice Cho to the plenary session that day, but postponed the schedule to gather further input from lawmakers.

Meanwhile, regarding the special counsel bill on fabricated indictments, which was being considered for submission to the plenary session that day, Kim said, "I think this may be the final stage in addressing the accumulated issues."

He explained, "It was a process of setting aside the issue of withdrawing indictments, which had been the biggest point of contention, verifying objective facts, and examining in greater detail the matters addressed by the Prosecution Future Committee."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.