Ruling and Opposition Parties Agreed on Prosecutors Reformation

The Ruling and the opposition parties agreed at the floor leaders meeting yesterday to discuss the measures on the prosecutors reformation at the special committee for the political reformation of the National Assembly.

Rep. Lee Sang-Soo of the New Millennium Democratic Party and Rep. Lee Jae-Oh of the Grand National Party revealed after their meeting that ``[both parties] will discuss the measures for the improvement of the neutrality and the fairness of the Prosecutors Office.`` Such agreement was suggested by NMDP and accepted by the Rep. Lee of GNP.

Consequently, the special committee is anticipated to limit arbitrary application of the law and the excessive imposition of the Prosecutor’s power, which have been raised by the investigation on so-called `Lee Yong-Ho Gate`.

Each party will choose 8 members of the special committee for the political reformation and have a general meeting around Oct. 8. Rep. Kang Jae-Sup of GNP was informally decided as the first chairperson of the committee. In terms of the `Lee Yong-Ho Gate` GNP, who insisted `special prosecutor after National Investigation` has failed to reach an agreement with NMDP, who argued that another national investigation is useless since the special prosecutor has introduced already.

Both parties will establish a subcommittee composed of 6 committee members and set for the discussion about the legislation of the special prosecutor`s system.

Meanwhile, in terms of the deposit system for the candidacy, the National Assembly passed a revision to reduce the deposit from 20 million to 15 million and the condition for the deposit return from current 20 percent votes out of the total valid votes to 15 percent. The new law will be implemented from the re-election and by-election on Oct. 15.

In addition, the general session of the National Assembly recommended 4 candidates assigned to the National Assembly for the National Human Rights Committee, which will be composed of the total 11 members. Yoo Shi-Chun, former NMDP executive member, Judge Yoo Hyun were nominated for the standing committee members and Kwak Nho-Hyun, professor of Korea National Open University, and Kim Deok-Hyun, lawyer, were recommended as non-standing committee members.

Rep. Kim Deok-Kyu was elected as a new chairperson of the information committee of the National Assembly, replacing Rep. Kim Myong-Sup, who was appointed as the secretary general of NMDP.

Yoon Jong-Koo jkmas@donga.com