When a political tactic turns into self-inflicted injury

Kim Seung-hyun
 
The writer is an editorial author on the JoongAng Ilbo. 
 
 
 
The Democratic Social gathering (DP)’s push for the so-called “trial suspension invoice,” as soon as thought-about a strategic transfer, has resulted in political embarrassment. The presidential workplace blocked the initiative, calling on the social gathering to not “drag the president into political strife.” Consequently, the invoice has been briefly excluded from the social gathering’s broader judicial reform plan — a pause might have saved it from additional embarrassment.
 

Kang Hoon-sik, presidential chief of workers, g Kang Hoon-sik ives a briefing on the trial suspension invoice on the presidential workplace in Yongsan, Seoul, on Nov. 3. [YONHAP]

 
The invoice, which proposes an modification to the Prison Process Act, was launched on Could 2 by DP lawmaker Kim Yong-min. It’s pending a plenary vote after passing a judiciary committee. 
 
Underneath the proposed new Clause 6, if a defendant is elected president, the court docket should pause trial proceedings from the date of election to the tip of the presidential time period.
 
Nonetheless, the issue lies with present clauses. Article 306 at the moment permits courts to droop trials when a defendant lacks the psychological capability to face trial or is just too in poor health to look in court docket. Including “if the defendant is elected president” to this listing would place the pinnacle of state in the identical class as these mentally incompetent or bodily incapacitated. Even some authorized students described the invoice as a misplacement of authorized logic.
 
The DP’s desperation on the time was comprehensible. The invoice was drafted the day after the Supreme Courtroom despatched again the ruling of then-presidential candidate Lee Jae Myung for violating election legislation, resulting in an existential disaster in an election yr. The trial suspension invoice was seen as a intelligent workaround.
 
 
The urgency light when the retrial court docket postponed proceedings till after the presidential election. As soon as Lee took workplace, his authorized group invoked Article 84 of the Structure, which grants sitting presidents momentary immunity from prison prosecution.
 
However the sense of disaster has lately re-emerged. Throughout a parliamentary audit, the pinnacle of the Seoul excessive court docket mentioned a trial may theoretically resume even throughout a presidency. Across the identical time, key figures within the Daejang-dong improvement scandal obtained heavy sentences. Some within the DP then rushed to revive the invoice — a transfer that even fellow social gathering members criticized as “scratching a scab.”
 
An identical sample appeared within the controversy over summoning Kim Hyun-ji, the primary presidential protocol chief. Earlier presidential secretaries for normal affairs have testified in audits, however Kim was excluded, with the social gathering claiming it was to stop political theater. As a substitute, it made Kim seem untouchable. Her switch from normal affairs secretary to protocol chief additionally raised suspicions of evasion. A compromise to have her attend solely the morning session was mocked as a “half-and-half answer.”
 

Kim Hyun-ji, first presidential protocol chief, attends a senior secretariat assembly on the presidential workplace in Yongsan, Seoul, on Oct. 2. [YONHAP]

 
Regardless of holding a parliamentary majority and powerful public assist, the DP seems overly defensive, even anxious. In making an attempt to keep away from political legal responsibility, it dangers inviting deeper controversy. This sample of speeding authorized modifications, shielding figures from scrutiny and framing criticism as political assaults has now develop into acquainted.
 
The trial suspension invoice, as soon as referred to as a safeguard for constitutional order, now appears politically clumsy and legally inconsistent. Moderately than shielding the president, it dangers diminishing the dignity of the workplace by linking it to authorized provisions meant for the incapacitated.
 
There may be rising concern about what number of extra such sensible methods that flip into self-inflicted wounds the general public will witness.