People Power Party: "Requesting Unobtainable Data and Saying 'Can't Hold Han Deok-su Hearing'"

"Democratic and Justice Parties Say Unilateral Notice to Renegotiate Schedule Without Leaving Even 20 Hours for Hearing Is Disrespectful to the People"

Prime Minister Nominee Han Duck-soo 2022.4.4/News1

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Hyun-joo] In response to the Democratic Party of Korea and the Justice Party urging to postpone the confirmation hearing schedule for Prime Minister nominee Han Deok-su due to insufficient submission of materials, the People Power Party appealed, saying, "Would the public accept it if you say you cannot hold the hearing by requesting materials that cannot be obtained at this point?" and urged, "Please comply with the legally stipulated hearing deadline."

Members of the People Power Party belonging to the Special Committee on the Confirmation Hearing for nominee Han stated in a written statement on the 24th, "Unilaterally notifying to renegotiate the schedule at 2 p.m. on Sunday, with less than 20 hours left before the hearing, is neither considerate to the other party nor courteous to the public."

They continued, "Our National Assembly Act and the Confirmation Hearing Act stipulate that the confirmation hearing procedure must be completed within 20 days from the date the request for the hearing of the prime minister nominee is submitted," emphasizing, "Since the request for nominee Han's hearing was submitted on April 7, our National Assembly has the obligation to complete the hearing by the 26th."

Furthermore, they rebutted the claim of insufficient material submission as untrue, stating, "Even in past National Assembly situations where the ruling and opposition parties were in conflict, there has never been a case of violating the prime minister confirmation hearing period."

According to the materials presented by the committee members, the Prime Minister Confirmation Hearing Preparation Team has requested a total of about 1,090 items, including approximately 485 common requested materials and 605 individual requested materials. Regarding this, they explained, "This number of requests is three to four times more than the 319 items (85% submitted) requested during Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon's term under the Moon Jae-in administration, 250 items (52% submitted) during Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun's term, and 347 items (84% submitted) during Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum's term, and most of these have been responded to."

They added, "There are many unreasonable material requests, so some contents cannot be answered," citing examples such as "all real estate transaction records of the nominee's deceased father (1907?1982) and mother (1913?1994), who passed away more than a generation ago, all salary records since appointment as a public official in 1970, all business trip records from 1982 to 1997, all meeting minutes during the participatory government prime minister period, real estate contracts from 30 years ago, all personal credit card usage records from the past 10 years, and all domestic and international airport duty-free purchase lists of the nominee's family over the past 20 years."

They concluded, "Nevertheless, we ask nominee Han to review any insufficient material submissions once more and to cooperate as much as possible."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.