Prosecutors Consider Summoning Roh

In accordance with the impeachment rule against President Roh, a member of the prosecution, Kim Ki-chun, the chief of National Parliament’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee, has submitted a 25-page document to the constitutional court that asserts, “His direct interview at the constitutional court can be regarded as a duty to the public. Failure in appearance is equivalent to admitting the contents of the impeachment bill.”

Prosecutors are considering the measure to request the summoning of President Roh before the judicial committee.

As for this measure, “If the request is really submitted to us, we will decide as to whether or not to summon the president,” stated the constitutional court.

The advocate group for President Roh has disclosed on this day that, because the ninth clause of the election law provides for a government employee’s duty to maintain the state, he has the possibility of violating freedom of expression as presented in the constitution and they consider presenting a petition.

Moon Jae-in, the secretary of the advocate group asserted that “it is so natural for a governmental employee to maintain a mediocre position, but the election law, which prohibits any political expression even to a private extent, has evidence of violating the constitution.”

On the other hand, the constitutional court has held a second round of judiciary talks for the impeachment bill, and discussed thoroughly working-level points such as the additional indication for the second interview if Roh does not appear at the first interview, the judiciary procedure in the future, and Roh’s violation of the election law.

After the discussion, the chief judge, Joo Sun-hoe, stated that “the outlines of the case have been cleared up. The exact date of the second interview will be decided after the discussion of the judges at the first interview on March 30.”

Sang-Rok Lee myzodan@donga.com