Ex-unity panel head Lee Seok-yeon to chair Kwak Sang-eon's support group

Lee Seok-yeon (이석연), a former head of the presidential National Unity Committee, said on Facebook on 20 October that he will chair the support association of Kwak Sang-eon (곽상언), a Democratic Party lawmaker and son-in-law of the late former President Roh Moo-hyun. Lee wrote that he supports 'conviction, not a party, and the Constitution, not a camp'. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]

Lee said the decision was not made out of agreement with the Democratic Party's political line. He said he has criticised the party and the current government when they departed from the Constitution and the rule of law, and that some people may find his choice odd. He said he is backing a politician who puts the Constitution ahead of party line and his own conscience ahead of his camp's applause. [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]

Lee said Kwak was the only Democratic lawmaker to vote against the 'law distortion' offence (법왜곡죄) the party pushed, and the only one in the party to vote against a Criminal Procedure Act amendment abolishing prosecutors' investigative powers. He added that, as unity committee head, he had publicly said that creating the offence and abolishing prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers were a disgrace to a civilised state and might be unconstitutional. 'What is truly hard is to tell your own side "no" when it is going wrong,' Lee wrote, adding that he saw that stance in Kwak and read hope for Korean politics in it. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]

Lee also addressed his history with Roh. He said he led the ruling against the capital relocation law and was highly critical of the Roh government's policies, but that this concerned the constitutional limits of policy and the exercise of power. He wrote that Roh Moo-hyun belongs to no party and that the 'Roh Moo-hyun spirit' cannot be a 'political licence' that those in power take out whenever needed to justify their choices. Whether today's Democratic Party properly carries on that spirit, he said, is a separate matter. [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]

Kwak also posted on Facebook. He said he felt a heavy sense of responsibility over Lee's decision, that Lee differs from him in political position and life path, and that Lee had valued a politician's conviction and public judgment above political conflict or personal ties. Kwak wrote that he would not treat the support as agreement with all his judgments, asked Lee to point out wrong ones and said he would listen to the criticism. [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]

Lee became the first National Unity Committee chair under the Lee Jae-myung government in September last year, according to Yonhap and Hankook Ilbo. Yonhap reported that during his tenure he advised the president to leave the Democratic Party. Hankook Ilbo described him as a conservative elder. In September he said he had learned that the government's thinking and philosophy on national unity differed greatly from his own. Yonhap and Hankook Ilbo said he left when his term expired, while Maeil Business quoted him as saying he would step down at President Lee's will. [ 1 , 3 , 5 ]