Arrest of Rep. Park Chang-dal Rejected

Parliament held its main session Tuesday to submit a motion of arrest for Rep. Park Chang-dal, suspected of having violated election law, and put it to a parliamentary vote, but rejected it.

Lawmakers voted 121 in favor of the arrest and 156 against, with five abstaining and four invalid votes. A total of 286 votes were cast in the 299-seat Assembly.

The motion of arrest was the 43rd to be submitted since the creation of the Constitutional Assembly, and the first since the opening of the 17th National Assembly.

Because approval proposal for the arrest of Rep. Park was withheld, not a single motion of arrest for incumbent lawmakers has been passed by parliament for eight years since the prosecution’s request to approve the arrest of former Democratic Party lawmaker Park Eun-tae was passed on October 15, 1995 during the 14th National Assembly.

The Uri Party and the Grand National Party took a free vote without deciding the parties’ official positions, which came from being aware of public criticism for the abuse of the constitutional privilege of immunity from arrest.

Preceding the vote, Rep. Park appealed on the grounds of unfairness and amicable management during a personal speech at the main session, and GNP lawmakers Park Gye-dong, Joo Ho-young, Kim Jae-won pointed out the problems in application of the election law against Justice Minister Kang Kum-sil.

Rep. Park has been investigated by the police on suspicion of starting his election campaign before the official campaign through his district’s mountaineering club from September, 2002 to March this year when he had been a member of the Assembly elected from the national constituency, and distributed campaigners with money and goods under the pretext of public relations expenses.

Yeon-Wook Jung jyw11@donga.com