Rep. Choo Mi-ae (far right), chair of the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee, strikes the gavel to finalize a request for materials during a parliamentary audit held at the Supreme Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, Wednesday. (Yonhap)
Rep. Choo Mi-ae (far right), chair of the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee, strikes the gavel to finalize a request for materials during a parliamentary audit held at the Supreme Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, Wednesday. (Yonhap)

Lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea conducted an on-site inspection of the Supreme Court on Wednesday as part of a parliamentary audit, despite a boycott by the main opposition People Power Party.

The inspection focused on the Supreme Court’s May decision to remand an election law case involving President Lee Jae Myung, who was then the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate for the June 3 election. The case, which centers on Lee’s alleged violation of election law, has since been suspended following a lower court’s decision to delay its ruling, citing the need to ensure a fair opportunity for Lee in the presidential race.

Declaring the start of the inspection, Rep. Choo Mi-ae, chair of the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee, said it is to assess the ruling’s validity and examine how the justices reviewed the case.

“We will examine access logs and internal documents, as well as budget materials related to the proposed increase in the number of Supreme Court justices,” Choo said, urging cooperation from the National Court Administration, which oversees judicial affairs for the top court.

Earlier in the day, the committee formally requested access to records from March 26 to May 1 for justices involved in the case, as well as internal memos written by assigned judicial researchers.

Democratic Party lawmakers said the request is intended to determine whether all members of the full bench had reviewed the roughly 70,000-page case file before overturning the appellate court’s acquittal of Lee.

“This is an unprecedented case of political intervention by the judiciary,” said Rep. Kim Gi-pyo of the Democratic Party. “Did all of them actually read it? Did they read it on paper, as a PDF, or only look at the opinion summaries? Their answers are inconsistent.”

People Power Party lawmakers strongly objected to the move, calling it “unconstitutional interference in an ongoing trial."

“What happened today is deeply regrettable. It amounts to an illegal act, no different from a search and seizure. It’s intended to humiliate Chief Justice Jo Hee-de and exonerate Lee Jae Myung,” said Rep. Na Kyung-won of the People Power Party.

Rep. Shin Dong-wook of the People Power Party added, “Two days ago, they confined the chief justice. Now they’re taking over the court," claiming that the party's request to let the chief judge of the Supreme Court leave the parliamentary audit session on Monday was ignored by the committee chaired by ruling party lawmaker Rep. Choo.

According to Rep. Park Ji-won of the Democratic Party, members of the committee inspected facilities and documents at the court during the visit.

“We examined the full bench courtroom and the smaller division courtrooms,” Park wrote in a Facebook post.


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