"Civilians Excluded from Audit Targets"… Democratic Party Drastically Revises 'Board of Audit and Inspection Act Amendment'

Strengthening Audit Committee's Decision-Making Authority
Including Enhanced Audit Transparency
Party Proposal to Be Pushed Next Week

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jun-yi] The opposition party has decided to significantly revise and propose the "Board of Audit and Inspection Act Amendment," which centers on reducing the functions of the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), as a party policy. As the BAI increased its level of checks on the previous administration, including the audit of the shooting of public officials in the West Sea and the audit of Jeon Hyun-hee, Chairperson of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, the opposition party also intensified its pressure in response. The opposition included provisions in the amendment to strengthen the decision-making authority of the Audit Committee and to prohibit private citizens from being subjects of audits. After review by the Policy Committee, the amendment is planned to be adopted as party policy next week.

On the morning of the 27th, the Democratic Party's Yoon Seok-yeol Regime Political Oppression Countermeasures Committee held a plenary meeting at the National Assembly and disclosed a draft of the BAI Act amendment based on these points. This draft concretizes audit procedures, regulations, and penalty provisions based on the amendment previously proposed by Representative Shin Jeong-hoon.

The core of the amendment is to strengthen the decision-making authority of the Audit Committee. To this end, it requires the disclosure of the Audit Committee's resolutions. Additionally, the current BAI Act's provision listing "audit policies and major audit plans" as matters for the Audit Committee's resolution is revised to "audit commencement, audit policies, audit plans, and changes to audit plans," and for ongoing public service inspections, post-approval by the Audit Committee is required. Previously, the BAI conducted a special audit on the West Sea public official shooting incident and requested a prosecution investigation into Jeon Hyun-hee, Chairperson of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, without the Audit Committee's resolution, drawing criticism from the opposition; this amendment aims to address that. The amendment also includes provisions to increase the BAI's transparency by requiring that the results of internal accounting audits and duty inspections be reported not only to the President but also to the relevant standing committees of the National Assembly.

The amendment also contains provisions restricting private citizens from being the main subjects of audits. This appears to be aimed at preventing former President Moon Jae-in and others, who are private citizens, from being subject to BAI audits. Regarding this, Chairperson Park explained, "Former President Moon Jae-in, former Chief of Staff Noh Young-min, former National Intelligence Service Director Seo Hoon, and former National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won are all private citizens," adding, "The audit of the West Sea public official shooting incident was not an audit of a state administrative agency but an audit of private citizens."

Furthermore, for digital information forensics, the amendment raises the principle of "selective extraction" to prevent indiscriminate abuse of forensic investigations. It also strengthens penalty provisions for illegal audits.

The Democratic Party plans to push for the adoption of the amendment as party policy next week. A party floor official stated, "Final review time by the Policy Committee is needed," adding, "Based on today's discussion, after review by the Policy Committee, we plan to hold a policy caucus meeting around next week to propose it as party policy."

On the same day, the Countermeasures Committee proposed a party-level national audit investigation encompassing the BAI, prosecution, and police. Chairperson Park pointed out issues such as the budget input for the presidential office relocation, suspicions of irregularities in the official residence construction, and abuse of authority by the BAI, emphasizing, "Ultimately, the mobilization of the prosecution, police, and BAI is an abuse of state public authority," and stressed, "I propose a comprehensive national audit investigation covering all three pillars related to the three constitutional violations."

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