Kim Min-seok, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, said moves to impeach Supreme Court Chief Justice Jo Hee-de will go forward "step by step, as originally planned, including a parliamentary investigation." Calls within the ruling bloc to impeach the chief justice have intensified since an appeals court acquitted Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon.
Kim made the remarks to reporters on the 24th after attending a sports event for press photographers at the National Assembly, responding to a question about voices inside his party calling for Jo's impeachment following the appeals court ruling on Oh. On the timing of the parliamentary investigation, he said he understood that "various options are being combined and coordinated at the floor leadership level." He did not mention a specific schedule or procedure for the impeachment push.
Asked about the appeals court's acquittal of Oh, Kim said his comments from the previous day would suffice. Immediately after the ruling, Kim had called it "a ruling that is difficult to understand and difficult to accept, legally or by common sense," adding that he would "watch and expect a rigorous judgment from the Supreme Court."
The ruling has sharpened criticism of the judiciary across the ruling bloc. The Rebuilding Korea Party demanded Jo's impeachment and the dismantling of the National Court Administration. Within the Democratic Party, the faction aligned with Chung Chung-rai called for impeachment proceedings to begin immediately. Lee Sung-yoon, a Supreme Council member identified with that faction, said, "These days the public doubts the Jo Hee-de court's will to settle accounts over the insurrection."
The Democratic Party leadership urged the special counsel to appeal to the Supreme Court. Floor leader Han Byung-do wrote on Facebook that the decision was "a ruling that does not match the public's common sense and expectations," and said he regretted the appeals court's reversal of the guilty verdict.
Criminal Division 7 of the Seoul High Court, presided over by Ku Hoe-keun, overturned the lower court's guilty verdict a day earlier and acquitted Oh of violating the Political Funds Act. The appeals court questioned the credibility of testimony by Myung Tae-kyun, which had formed the basis of the first-instance conviction. It found that Myung tended to say he could not remember details unfavorable to himself or to reinterpret earlier statements in his own favor. The court also found that the scope and timing of the opinion polls Oh allegedly commissioned were unclear, and that the special counsel had failed to prove that Oh commissioned them at all.