[News Today] SPECIAL PROBE BILLS PASS COMMITTEE

[LEAD]
Today, a number of bills including calls for special probes into first lady Kim Keon-hee and the death of a marine last year, passed the Judiciary Committee with only opposition support, following the ruling party's exit. The opposition sought to advance these bills in today's plenary session. But National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik suggested delaying their consideration until after the Chuseok holiday.

[REPORT]
From the start of the committee meeting, rival parties locked horns over the passage of two bills calling for special probes into first lady Kim Keon-hee and the death of a marine last year.

Cho Bae-sook / Legislation & Judiciary Committee(PPP)
The PPP and DP are both negotiation groups but our party can't recommend a special counsel and only the opposition can. Is this fair?

Lee Geon-tae / Legislation & Judiciary Committee(DP)
If the president is not involved in the marine death probe, isn't it better for him and PPP to clear allegations by swiftly adopting a special probe?

Voices were raised and heated exchanges transpired during the discourse.

Jung Chung-rae / Chair, Legislation and Judiciary Committee(DP)
Rep. Kwak Kyu-taek, are you out of your mind?

Kwak Kyu-taek / Legislation and Judiciary Committee(PPP)
I'm of sound mind.

Eventually, the two bills were unilaterally passed by the opposition as ruling party members walked out in protest.

"I declare the bills' passage."

Another opposition-pushed revised bill on the use of region specific local currencies also passed through the Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

The opposition sought to handle all 3 bills during Thursday's plenary session but the ruling camp strongly resisted the move noting the bills didn't pass through the earlier committee with bipartisan agreement.

After much thought, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik proposed that the bills be handled through bipartisan consultation on September 19 which is after the Chuseok holiday. He noted that the focus now should be on tackling the medical service vacuum.

Woo Won-shik / Nat'l Assembly Speaker
I believe the focus should be on the public emergency and operation of the joint consultative body involving parties, gov't and the medical community.

With the speaker's intervention, for now, the fate of the special probe bills has been deferred to after Chuseok.

However partisan wrangling will likely continue post-holiday as the opposition seeks to vote on the bills right away while the ruling party says an agreement should come first.