Presidential Office declines to respond to unconstitutional impeachment hearing

The Office of the President announced on Monday that it will not respond to the impeachment petition hearings for President Yoon Suk Yeol scheduled for July 19 and July 26. The announcement indicates that there is no possibility of presidential office officials, such as Kim Yong-hyun, chief of the Presidential Security Service, appearing at the hearing on Friday, which deals with a special probe bill on the death of Cpl. Chae. In response, members of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee from opposition parties, including the Democratic Party of Korea and the Rebuilding Korea Party, filed a complaint against presidential office officials, including Chief of Staff Chung Jin-suk, Senior Presidential Secretary for Political Affairs Hong Chul-ho, and head of the Presidential Security Service's security team, Park Min-sung, with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) on the same day for allegedly obstructing the delivery of the hearing's witness summons. It is interpreted to be an attempt to pressure the presidential office ahead of the hearing.

"We cannot respond to the impeachment hearing, which is unconstitutional and illegal," a senior presidential office official told The Dong-A Ilbo. Earlier, the Democratic Party of Korea and other opposition parties unilaterally voted at a plenary session of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee on July 9 to hold hearings on the petition to impeach President Yoon. Hearings are scheduled for Friday on ‘Suspicions of External Pressure in the Investigation of the Death of Cpl. Chae,’ and next Friday on ‘Corruption and Manipulation of State Affairs by President Yoon and First Lady Kim Keon Hee's Family.’

The People Power Party is also considering whether to attend the hearing, stating it is "void ab initio." "It is an unconstitutional impeachment hearing," ruling party spokesman Cho Ji-yeon told reporters, "It is an attempt to shake the Yoon administration to bulletproof Lee Jae-myung's judicial risk."

The opposition lawmakers from the Legislation and Judiciary Committee traveled to the CIO and filed complaints against 10 officials from the presidential office, including Chief of Staff Chung, and two police officers for refusing or obstructing the receipt of witness summons for the hearing by proxy. "Last Friday (July 12), the presidential office committed an act of media repression by restricting the movement of a reporter as if putting him in a fish cage for the first time, and violently interfered with opposition lawmakers delivering witness summons, which is a fair execution of duty," Kim Seung-won, an opposition lawmaker, told reporters. Democratic lawmakers also pressured for the attendance of First Lady Kim and Ms. Choi Eun-soon, Yoon's mother-in-law, who were selected as witnesses for the hearing on July 26.


권구용 기자 9dragon@donga.com