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People Power Party floor leader Song Eon-seok attends a strategy meeting on the parliamentary audit at the National Assembly in Seoul on October 14. / Source: Yonhap News

On the second day of South Korea’s annual parliamentary audit, ruling and opposition lawmakers are set to clash over a series of contentious issues, including prosecution reform, the government’s recent IT network outage, and the arrest of former Korea Communications Commission (KCC) chair Lee Jin-sook.

Fourteen standing committees — including those on Legislation and Judiciary, Strategy and Finance, Public Administration and Security, and Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications — convened sessions on Monday to question ministries and agencies.

The Legislation and Judiciary Committee is once again expected to be the main political battleground. The ruling People Power Party (PPP) plans to press the Ministry of Justice on the recent death of a Yangpyeong County official under special investigation, as well as the rationale and legitimacy of the Lee Jae-myung administration’s prosecution reform drive. Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Party (DP) is preparing to go on the offensive over the progress of the three ongoing special investigations — into the insurrection case, First Lady Kim Keon-hee, and the death of Corporal Chae Sang-byeong.

The PPP also intends to scrutinize the ruling bloc’s plan to abolish the prosecution service and divide its functions between new investigative agencies, including the envisioned Serious Crimes Investigation Agency.

At the Public Administration and Security Committee, parties are expected to clash over responsibility for the recent fire at the National Information Resources Service, which disrupted more than 700 government computer systems. The DP will likely blame the previous administration for inadequate backup protocols, while the PPP plans to point fingers at the current government, noting that President Lee Jae-myung appeared on a television entertainment program during the crisis.

Debate is also anticipated over the follow-up measures to the new Government Organization Act. Lawmakers are expected to urge stronger safeguards against the rising number of abductions and killings of Koreans in Cambodia, as the Ministry of the Interior and Safety — which oversees police — faces questioning.

The Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee will summon former KCC chair Lee Jin-sook, who was arrested on charges of violating the election law and later released by court order. Lee is expected to testify on allegations of political bias and unlawful investigation.

Other committees will take up additional issues: the Defense Committee plans to address suspicions over a “Pyongyang drone operation” under the former Yoon Suk-yeol government, while the Climate, Energy, Environment and Labor Committee will question the current administration’s energy and climate policies.