Is the Special Prosecutor Law a Constitutional Violation? Insights from Jo Eung-cheon

Jo Eung-cheon, the Reform New Party’s candidate for governor of Gyeonggi Province, urged President Lee Jae-myung—who has said the current constitution cannot guarantee the country’s future and has pushed for revision—to speak about constitutional reform only while he respects and upholds the constitution.

In a Facebook post, Jo accused President Lee and the Democratic Party of advancing a “special prosecutor law to cancel indictments” aimed at protecting the president. He called the proposal an unconstitutional measure from start to finish and described it as, in effect, a form of “judicial insurrection.”

He criticized Democratic lawmaker Park Seong-jun’s remark that “eight or nine out of ten people don’t even know what ‘prosecution cancellation’ means,” saying such a view treats citizens as ignorant subjects and reflects a “do-as-I-please” mentality—an unmistakable mark of dictatorial power.

Jo warned the bill would transfer entire cases currently under court review to the special prosecutor, allow the selection of the judge in charge of warrants, and even let the special prosecutor reexamine election-law cases that the Supreme Court has effectively upheld as convictions. He said the bill would open the door wide to canceling indictments and argued that no legal measure in history has been this extreme—“not even Hitler or Chun Doo-hwan,” he asserted.

Emphasizing that equality before the law is basic knowledge even elementary students understand, Jo noted that eight of the 12 cases the special prosecutor would investigate are directly linked to President Lee. He called the bill a direct challenge to Article 11 of the Constitution, treating one South Korean citizen as an exception to the rule of law.

He also blasted President Lee for yesterday branding opponents of constitutional revision as supporters of illegal martial law, saying it is brazen hypocrisy for someone who will not even uphold the living constitution—and who seems intent on shredding it—to talk about amending it.

Meanwhile, six parties in the National Assembly, excluding the People Power Party, will proceed to a vote on the constitutional amendment. The proposal would enshrine the spirit of the Bu-Ma Democratic Uprising and the May 18 movement in the constitution’s preamble and tighten the conditions for declaring martial law.