[Editorial] Disturbing the government

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea slashed the government budget for next year and passed the reduced budget unilaterally through the Special Budget Settlement Committee.

The party, which has a majority in the National Assembly, is also pushing to impeach chair of the Board of Audit and Inspection and senior prosecutors. It seems determined to disturb the government.

The budget the majority party passed through the committee amid a ruling party boycott Friday reflects only reductions that it wants. The original government budget of 677.4 trillion won ($485 billion) was curtailed by 4.1 trillion won. It is the first time in the history of Korea’s constitutional governance that a budget bill was processed without bipartisan agreement in the budget committee.

The party removed special activity expenses for the presidential office and the National Security Office, specific work and special activity expenses for the prosecution and the Board of Audit and Inspection, and special activity expenses for the police. The expenses are related to activities that require secrecy such as intelligence gathering, narcotics trafficking investigation and probes related to national security. Setbacks in these offices' investigations will be inevitable.

The Assembly has so far acknowledged budgets for such activities undisclosed to the public. But the party abruptly removed all of them, citing the possibility of abuse. It is tantamount to revenge for indicting its leader, Rep. Lee Jae-myung, and auditing irregularities committed under the previous Moon Jae-in administration.

The government’s reserve fund of 4.8 trillion won was halved to 2.4 trillion won. The fund is used to pay for responses not only to natural disasters but also to economic crises. It cut 50.5 billion won the government had demanded for a drilling operation to uncover potential gas and oil reserves in the East Sea to 800 million won.

Constitutionally, the National Assembly must get consent from the government to increase the budget, but to reduce it, governmental agreement is not necessary. The Democratic Party used this rule to slash the budget. The party even gave up on increasing budgets for programs that it is interested in.

The Democratic Party is also pushing an impeachment drive. It reportedly plans to put to a vote in the Assembly plenary session tomorrow its bills to impeach Choe Jae-hae, chair of the Board of Audit and Inspection, and Lee Chang-soo, chief law enforcement officer of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, and two other senior prosecutors of the office. If the party pushes these bills through, the total number of high-ranking officials it will have impeached will rise to 18.

If the chief prosecutor of Seoul District is suspended, it will hamper not only the cases against Lee, but also those involving other individuals.

The party cites several reasons for pushing to impeach Choe, but they are just formalities. If the BAI head is impeached, it would be the first time for the top post to be vacated. The inspection of government agencies will likely run into problems.

The main opposition party's push to impeach the BAI head appears to be an act of political retaliation. The board has audited allegations related to Moon’s major policies: that government statistics were manipulated, that the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system was intentionally delayed, and that data was manipulated to decommission the Wolseong nuclear power plant.

Even if the Assembly approves impeachment bills against Choe and three prosecutors, the chances are slim that the Constitutional Court will uphold the impeachments. Earlier, the court rejected impeachment bills presented by the party against Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min and two prosecutors. And yet the party continues its impeachment drive, apparently to disrupt the government.

The party is said to be toying with the idea of impeaching Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun and recommending the dismissal of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister Song Mi-ryung. It seems to be opportunistically eyeing the fall of the Yoon government. The government does not only belong to Lee and his party. They should stop trying to disturb the government.