▲ President Lee Jae-myung said on the 22nd, in connection with the political dispute over whether the chief of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency should attend Cabinet meetings, that "abandoning the authority to direct and supervise the agency would violate the Constitution and the Government Organization Act, constituting grounds for impeachment and a crime of dereliction of duty punishable under criminal law." He also said that "a president's direction and supervision of state affairs is both a power and a responsibility." As the president noted, having the heads of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and the Public Prosecution Agency sit in on Cabinet meetings does not break any law. The problem is that it runs counter to the principle of criminal justice that fairness must be apparent as well as substantive, raising doubts about the independence and neutrality of investigations. It is worth looking back at why no prosecutor general has attended a Cabinet meeting over the past 25 years.
▲ The National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee held a plenary session on the 22nd and adopted the confirmation hearing report on Choi Gil-soo, the nominee for special inspector. The post of special inspector was created in 2014 to prevent corruption involving the president's relatives and close associates, but it has sat vacant for more than a decade since Lee Seok-soo, the first inspector, resigned in 2016 under the Park Geun-hye administration. Choi was recommended by the ruling party, but given how hard it was to revive the office, there is reason to hope that no one will be beyond the reach of its oversight.