1.    Justice based on due process stands at core of constitutionalism

Article 12 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea refers to the right of all people to personal liberty and stipulates that “All citizens shall enjoy personal liberty. No person shall be arrested...searched, seized or interrogated except as provided by Act.” Article 308, Clause 2 of Korea’s Criminal Procedure Code also stipulates, “Any evidence obtained in violation of the due process shall not be admissible.” The law clearly forbids evidence collected in violation of proper procedure as being inadmissible in court. The law is designed to prevent abuses of law by dictators.

At present, the Moon Jae-in administration set up Truth and Reconciliation Committees within various administrative branches of government. But the so-called searches being pursued by those committees are actually criminal investigations that clearly violate the due process mentioned above.

The Truth and Reconciliation Committees that have been set up by the Moon Jae-in administration claim to possess justifiable legal cause through the establishment of directives and regulations. But there must be a clear legal basis to create such committees. These committees, which have been created without legal basis, are illegal entities that seek to obtain expost facto legal justification and violate the course of justice. The constituents of the committees are also civilians rather than officially-mandated government workers so they cannot be deemed as being official public organizations.

Yet these illegal organizations are being granted access to sensitive information within Cheong WaDae and the National Intelligence Service under the tacit understanding of the government, picking outonly bits and pieces of information that the ruling administration sees fit and instructing prosecutors to launch investigations based on such findings.

If an investigation is required in a constitutional state, the National Assembly, which represents supreme power, either formally authorizes the subject and timing of such a probe and bestows authority to a legal entity or conducts such a probe on its own. This is how such matters must be handled in a constitutional state.

2. We Cannot Afford Further Destruction of Constitutionalism

I am warning the Moon Jae-in administration and urging the Liberty Korea Party to take active measures to deal with the latest developments, because I can no longer turn a blind eye to the destruction of constitutionalism.

1) To the Moon Jae-in administration

First of all, the Moon Jae-in administration must immediately dismantle all Truth and Reconciliation Committees that are being funded by taxpayers’ money and behaving like an occupying enemy force rifling through classified state information.

Second, prosecutors must immediately halt all illegal investigations following the orders of Truth and Reconciliation Committees that are based on illegally-obtained evidence.

Third, the courts must immediately release all suspects who have been detained and indicted by prosecutors based on illegal recommendations by Truth and Reconciliation Committees.

2) To the Liberty Korea Party

The Liberty Korea Party first must gather a group of lawyers who are willing to rectify the destructive actions of the Moon Jae-in administration and immediately launch a legal-response team.

Second, President Moon Jae-in, Presidential Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok, National Intelligence Service Director Suh Hoon and Yoon Seok-yeol, chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Officemust be charged with treason and leaking state secrets.

Third, the National Intelligence Service and prosecutors must be held responsible for causing Byun Chang-hoon, a prosecutorat the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office and another attorney working for the National Intelligence Service to take their own lives.

Fourth, the National Assembly must launch a probe into the illegal allocation of government funds to and abuses committed by the fact-finding task forces.

Fifth, we need to file a protest at the United Nations Human Rights Committee and UN Committee Against Torture regarding the illegal abuses of individual rights being committed by the Moon Jae-in administration.

November 28, 2017
Shim Jae-chul
Vice Speaker of the National Assembly of Korea