Rival parties agree to form special committee to probe Itaewon disaster

Korea’s main political parties are set to pass a bill establishing a special committee to investigate the deadly Itaewon disaster after they agreed on Wednesday to amend the most divisive sections of the legislation.

A mother and her two children pause in front of memorial altar to honor victims of the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush set up outside Seoul City Hall on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

Korea’s main political parties are set to pass a bill establishing a special committee to investigate the deadly Itaewon disaster after they agreed on Wednesday to amend the most divisive sections of the legislation.

The bill has languished for over a year since it was first proposed by the liberal Democratic Party (DP) in April 2023.

In their announcement on Wednesday, the DP and conservative People Power Party (PPP) said they had reached an agreement on the length of the committee’s mandate as well as its composition and means of investigation.

The two parties agreed to pass the bill at a plenary parliamentary session on Thursday.

The crowd crush of Oct. 29, 2022, which claimed the lives of 159 people who had gathered in Seoul’s Itaewon nightlife area for Halloween celebrations, prompted soul-searching and outrage over the lack of safety precautions and the botched official response afterward.

The original bill called for the formation of a special investigative committee to determine the causes of the disaster, who should be held liable and ways to prevent future recurrences.

Victims’ families had urged the National Assembly to pass the bill, which includes provisions for their participation in the investigative process.

However, the PPP, which is aligned with the government, opposed the bill for empowering the committee to request arrest and search warrants against people who refused to cooperate with the investigation.

The PPP also argued that an earlier state-led investigation had already uncovered the root causes of the tragedy and that the DP was pushing for another probe to pressure the government, particularly the Interior Ministry.

Using its majority, the DP railroaded the bill through the National Assembly in January, but President Yoon Suk Yeol later vetoed it.

Following bipartisan compromise, the amended bill announced on Wednesday will no longer allow the investigative committee to request warrants against people of interest.

The committee’s mandate will last one year but can be extended by up to three months under the terms of the bill.

The amended legislation was announced two days after DP leader Lee Jae-myung held his first official meeting with President Yoon and urged him not to exercise his veto against the bill.

The president has vetoed nine bills to date — the most of any Korean president since the country became a democracy in 1987.

Yoon, who came into office two years ago facing a National Assembly controlled by liberals opposed to his administration, will also spend the remainder of his 5-year term with his party in the minority after the DP won 175 seats in the 300-member legislature in the general election held on April 10.

The presidential office on Wednesday afternoon welcomed the bipartisan agreement to revise the bill as the “first concrete result” of Yoon’s talks with Lee.

Speaking at a press briefing in Yongsan District, central Seoul, presidential spokesperson Kim Soo-kyung said the bill “marks the beginning of restored cooperation” between the PPP and DP and that Yoon looks forward to the main parties “continuing trust-based communication on a number of state affairs.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]