The Constitutional Court on Thursday recognized procedural flaws in the passage of a package of law revisions designed to significantly reduce the prosecution's investigative powers.
The court made the decision 5-4, saying the revisions to the Prosecutors' Office Act and the Criminal Procedure Act were approved in the parliamentary judiciary committee in an irregular manner without sufficient debate.
The legislation was aimed at significantly reducing the prosecution's investigative powers by limiting prosecution probes to only two types of crime: corruption and economic crime. Critics denounced the legislation as a "complete deprivation of the prosecution's investigative power."
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP), which has majority control of the National Assembly, railroaded the legislation through when it was the ruling party last year before President Yoon Suk Yeol took office in May.
In the course of its passage, irregular means were employed, such as the DP having one of its lawmakers on the judiciary committee quit the party in an attempt to neutralize the opposition's attempt to block the bills' passage.
Two People Power Party lawmakers have since filed petitions with the Constitutional Court over the unconstitutionality of the DP's railroading of the prosecution reform bills.
Source: Yonhap News Agency