Lee takes to the streets after being sentenced to prison… The judiciary is corrupt.

“This is a crazy ruling for a crazy regime.”

Park Chan-dae, floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, said at the third rally to “condemn Kim Kun-hee and Yoon Seok-yeol’s corruption of state affairs and call for a special prosecutor” held in Gwanghwamun, Seoul on the 16th, that the court sentenced Lee Jae-myung to one year in prison and two years of probation for violating the Public Official Election Act. Commenting on the sentence as follows, he claimed, “It is a political ruling that cooperates with the prosecution dictatorship’s removal of political opponents.” He bundled the prosecution and the courts and said, “Legal engineers are violating people’s sovereignty and making a mockery of the rule of law. He also asked, “Is this normal?”

While the repercussions following Representative Lee’s first trial sentencing for violation of the election law are serious, controversy arose after a member of the opposition party’s leadership virtually denied the ‘independence of the judiciary’ in front of a large crowd of supporters the day after the sentencing. Throughout the weekend, the Democratic Party, the largest party in the National Assembly, has been pouring out claims such as “political ruling” and “judicial murder” regarding the court ruling, but some inside and outside the political world are pointing out that there is a need for moderation in order to respect the separation of powers.

Over the weekend, the Democratic Party continued to criticize Representative Lee’s first trial sentence not only at rallies but also through the party’s official organizations. At a press conference on the 17th, the Democratic Party’s Prosecutors’ Dictatorship Countermeasure Committee said, “The first trial ruling is a political decision to kill Lee Jae-myung.” The day before, in a condemnation issued in the name of all Democratic Party regional committee chairs and lawmakers, the ruling was said to be “a hand in hand to the ambitions of the prosecutorial dictatorship,” and the party’s Judicial Justice Special Committee said, “The first trial ruling is a judicial murder of Representative Lee and the Democratic Party.” “He said.

Representative Lee himself, who was sentenced, seemed to have the first trial sentence in mind at the Gwanghwamun rally the previous day, saying, “Jae Myung Lee will never die. “It’s because you are there,” he said. However, the ruling was not directly mentioned. It appears that this was taken into account that he plans to contest his innocence in the second trial by announcing his plan to appeal, and that the first trial on perjury charges is about to be sentenced on the 25th. Kim Yoon-deok, secretary-general of the Democratic Party, also explained the party’s claim of a ‘political ruling’ at a press conference that day, saying, “This is an expression of the position that if the reality of the prosecution’s malicious investigation and prosecution is not properly understood, it may ultimately fall into a ruling of a political nature.”

Dong-Hoon Han, the representative of the People Power Party, commented on the Democratic Party’s criticism of the court on Facebook, saying, “(Regarding the perjury sentence on the 25th) Representative Lee’s worst sentencing reasons for intimidating the judge in charge continue to pile up.”

Chae Jin-won, a professor of political science at Kyung Hee University’s Public Governance Research Institute, said in a phone call that day, “(The Democratic Party) does not recognize the separation of powers,” and added, “It shows the problem of ‘Lee Jae-myung’s one-man party.’ “The Democratic Party is not ‘Lee Jae-myung’s shrine,’ and they have no idea how the public will view this situation,” he criticized.

Reporters Kim Seung-hwan and Kim Hyun-woo

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