The Lee Dong-gwan Hearing Held... Concerns Over a 'Ineffective Hearing' Without Materials or Witnesses

Gominjung "Many responses came in one line"
Joseungrae "No intention to adopt ruling party witnesses"

The confirmation hearing for nominee Lee Dong-kwan, chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, was held at the National Assembly on the 18th. Amid main issues such as allegations of media control documents and school violence (hakpok) involving his children, the opposition party expressed concerns that the hearing could become a 'watered-down hearing' due to lack of materials and failure to adopt witnesses.

Ko Min-jung, a member of the National Assembly's Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee and a confirmation hearing member from the Democratic Party of Korea, said on BBS's 'Jeon Young-shin's Morning Journal' that morning, "(The nominee's side) is not responding to any requests for materials or answers," adding, "When asked lengthy questions, the answers are just one line, such as 'I have sufficiently explained,' one line, 'No external pressure was exerted,' one line, 'I believe the value of press freedom has been guaranteed.' There are an enormous number of such one-line answers."

Lee Dong-gwan, nominee for Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, is attending the confirmation hearing held at the National Assembly on the 18th. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

The ruling party stated that the nominee's side responded to 2,000 documents for the hearing, but Representative Ko pointed out that most of the responses were 'short answers,' far from submitting thorough materials. She also raised concerns that this could lead to a 'watered-down hearing.' Representative Ko said, "It seems their goal was one-line answers. How can we conduct a confirmation hearing with this? I wonder if this level of response has ever existed before."

Democratic Party Representative Jang Kyung-tae also criticized the poor quality of materials on CBS's 'Kim Hyun-jung's News Show,' saying, "(The nominee) is refusing to submit even the very basic materials designated by Article 12 of the Confirmation Hearing Act," and "Starting from his son's school violence, allegations of tax evasion on spousal gifts, and various media control suspicions, although many things have been revealed, they are not submitting even the materials already reported in the media, making this almost more than a bulletproof hearing."

He added, "It seems they are arrogantly expecting to just hold out for a day and then push through the appointment," and "The ruling party claims they responded to nearly 2,000 documents, but many of those are repeated statements like 'Submission is impossible due to lack of consent for personal information,' like parrots repeating the same phrase. Counting that as a response is shameless."

With no agreement between the ruling and opposition parties, the failure to adopt witnesses has increased the possibility of a 'watered-down hearing.' The Democratic Party requested witnesses such as former MBC President Park Sung-je and former Hana Financial Group Chairman Kim Seung-yu regarding allegations of media control and school violence involving the nominee's children, while the People Power Party requested former MBC President Kim Jang-gyeom and former KBS President Ko Dae-young as witnesses.

The opposition claims that the failure to adopt witnesses is due to the ruling party's lack of will. Cho Seung-rae, opposition party secretary of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, said on YTN's 'News King Park Ji-hoon,' "(The ruling party) says they will summon people like former MBC President Kim Jang-gyeom, KBS's Ko Dae-young, and Kang Kyu-hyung as witnesses, but these people have nothing to do with the nominee's hearing," adding, "Requesting such people as witnesses and then claiming the agreement broke down because we refused is proof that there was no intention at all to adopt witnesses."

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