(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Yang Soo-yeon = The National Human Rights Commission is discussing the agenda of abolishing the recommendation to 'guarantee the right to defense' of former President Yoon Seok-yeol, which was passed during the impeachment phase of former President Yoon Seok-yeol last year, as an official agenda on the 14th.
The Human Rights Commission submitted the agenda of 'abolishing the recommendation to guarantee President Yoon Seok-yeol's right to defense and apologizing to the public' at the 15th plenary committee held this afternoon.
This agenda was submitted to a vote with a majority vote after two hours of heated debate.
On February 10th of last year, the Human Rights Commission passed a motion recommending to investigative agencies to 'guarantee Yoon Seok-yeol's right to defend his impeachment trial' with 6 in favor and 4 against at the plenary committee meeting. The main content of the agenda submitted on this day was to abolish this.
This agenda was proposed by five standing members, including Lee Sook-jin and Oh Young-geun, and non-standing members So Ra-mi, Oh Wan-ho, and Cho Sook-hyeon, on July 10, and was officially submitted to the Security Council in about two months.
There has been continued criticism in the plenary and standing committees that Human Rights Commission Chairman Ahn Chang-ho deliberately did not submit the agenda and refused to discuss it.
In response to this, Chairman Ahn has stated that the gravity of the issue had to be taken into consideration as it involved scrapping the resolution of the plenary committee, and that the holding of the plenary committee had been postponed due to schedules such as summer vacation.
On this day as well, Chairman Ahn expressed the opinion that the presentation of the agenda was inappropriate in his opening remarks.
Chairman Ahn said, “It was an attempt to prevent incidents such as the intrusion into the Western District Court and the subsequent problems such as personal arrest,” and added, “The plenary committee’s expression of opinion and recommendation to uphold due process, which is the core principle of the Constitution, should be respected in the Republic of Korea, a country governed by the rule of law, and cannot be discarded or made the subject of a public apology.”
Non-standing members Han Seok-hoon and Kang Jeong-hye also expressed the opinion that the submission itself was illegal, saying that it was an agenda aimed at achieving legal effect, making it impossible to retroactively abolish past resolutions in a situation where institutions have already accepted the Human Rights Commission's recommendations.
Committee members in favor of submitting the agenda argued that the decision at the time could be seen as the Human Rights Commission supporting civil war.
Non-standing member Wan-ho Oh said, "It is not unconstitutional or illegal. However, the decision appears to be a technique of subtly advocating or protecting the civil war at that time," and pointed out, "Was it human rights for the Human Rights Commission to make such a decision to emphasize the right to defense of not only the insurrectionists, but also the insurrectionists, at that critical time?"
Non-standing member Cho Sook-hyeon also said, “Ultimately, the Human Rights Commission has abandoned its responsibility to maintain a high level of vigilance and independence in a situation of constitutional crisis and presidential impeachment, and has reduced the National Human Rights Organization to a defense organization for the powerful President Yoon Seok-yeol.”
