Acting President Choi Sang-mok on Jan. 10 urged the National Assembly to draft a constitutionally sound special counsel bill with bipartisan support, as tensions escalate between the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) and the Presidential Security Service (PSS) over attempts to arrest President Yoon Suk-yeol. In a message regarding the arrest warrant, Choi said that while the government has been working on a solution, resolving the conflict within the current legal framework is difficult. He stressed that a political agreement on a special prosecutor is necessary to settle the dispute over insurrection investigation authority and avoid violent clashes between public institutions.
Park Jong-joon, head of the PSS, who has been blocking the warrant’s execution, appeared before the police earlier that day and said, “I repeatedly suggested to the acting president that the government intervene to prevent physical clashes or bloodshed, but received no response.” He also added, “The investigation must proceed in a manner befitting a sitting president.” Later, Park submitted his resignation, which Acting President Choi accepted. Choi’s call for a bipartisan special counsel is seen as a response to Park’s final plea for intervention.
However, the Democratic Party criticized the move, claiming that the government is looking for excuses to delay the execution of the arrest warrant and reject the special counsel bill. The Democratic Party passed a revised special counsel bill through the National Assembly’s legislative committee the previous day, using a third-party recommendation method. The party plans to process it in the plenary session next week. The ruling People Power Party dismissed the revised bill as a “mere repackaging of hastily prepared legislation” and said they would negotiate with their own modified version, removing problematic provisions.
