Opposition-led National Assembly passes special counsel investigation bill on death of Marine Corporal, but Yoon to put veto on it

Members of the Marine Corps Reserve Corps Solidarity Regiment celebrate the passage of the so-called \

The main opposition-controlled National Assembly passed a bill seeking a special counsel investigation into allegations surrounding the death of Marine Corporal Chae Su-geun last year. It has been 288 days since Chae died in the line of duty. President Yoon Suk-yeol expressed his intention to immediately exercise his right of veto over the special counsel investigation bill, which could potentially target him. The atmosphere of cooperation that followed Yoon's first meeting with Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), has changed back to a confrontation. The political situation is returning to before the April 10 general election. The special act on the Itaewon crowd crush, which the ruling and opposition parties agreed on the previous day, also crossed the threshold of the National Assembly that day.

At the plenary session of the National Assembly, opposition lawmakers, including the members of DPK, voted on the special counsel investigation bill and passed it with all 168 lawmakers present in favor.

Lawmakers from the ruling People’s Power Party (PPP) boycotted the vote in protest of the opposition parties’ rescheduling and the rushed passage of the bill. Only Kim Woong, a PPP member who is of the non-Yoon Suk-yeol faction, remained in his seat and voted in favor.

Presidential chief of staff Chung Jin-suk held a briefing at the presidential office in Yongsan some 90 minutes after the bill passed the National Assembly, expressing "great regret" over the opposition's push for the special bill. "The enforcement of the special counsel prosecution bill is bad politics to abuse Chae's unfortunate death for political purposes,” Chung said. "The presidential office will respond strictly in the future, as there is great concern that the unilateral special bill will throw the country into chaos," hinting at exercising the president’s right to veto.

Park Joo-min, vice floor leader of the DPK, criticized the presidential office's intention to veto on the bill on social networking services, saying, "The country should not cover up the truth, even though it cannot try to find out the reason for the people’s wrongful death," and added, "Does the presidential office hear the voices of the people?" Kang Mi-jung, a spokesperson for the Rebuilding Korea Party, said in a commentary, "It is the people's will to relieve the resentment of the late Marine Corps and to reveal who tried to whitewash the incident.”

According to the National Barometer Survey (NBS) conducted by Embrain Republic, K-Stat Research, Korea Research, and Korea Research on 1,000 men and women over the age of 18 nationwide from April 29 to May 1, 67 percent of the respondents agreed to "processing the special counsel investigation bill before the end of the 21st National Assembly." Only 19 percent answered they were opposed to the idea.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.