PPP Chair Calls for Halt to Disciplinary Proceedings Amid Party Strife

People Power Party Chairman Chang Dong-hyuk on the 12th requested the party's Central Ethics Committee to "suspend all discussions on disciplinary cases currently filed with the ethics committee until the local elections conclude." He also issued a gag order to party officials regarding internal matters and personnel decisions, urging them to focus their efforts on fighting the opposition and the June 3 local elections. This appears to be a stopgap measure to paper over the intensifying intra-party conflicts, at least until the elections, following his earlier declaration to "sever ties with Yoon." But can public sentiment be restored by covering the sky with one's palm, without fundamental measures to unite and reform the divided party?

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Yang Moon-seok, whose dismissal from parliament was finalized on the 12th on charges including loan fraud, stated that "if it is determined that fundamental rights were overlooked, I intend to seek the Constitutional Court's judgment." The Supreme Court that day upheld the appellate court's ruling sentencing Yang to one year and six months in prison, suspended for three years. As the three judicial reform bills pushed through by the ruling party—the constitutional complaint system for court rulings, the judicial distortion crime, and the expansion of Supreme Court justices—were promulgated at midnight that day, a ruling party lawmaker who committed illegal acts immediately raised the prospect of a constitutional complaint, raising concerns about the "politicization of the judiciary" and chaos in the judicial system.