SEOUL– The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) said Thursday it will push for a revision of the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) Act to prevent politically-motivated inspections.
The DP plans to table a revision bill as early as next week.
“We have experienced over these past few months the BAI, a constitutional institution, can be abused by power … We drew up a bill to strengthen the BAI’s political neutrality and independence and improve its impartiality and transparency,” Rep. Park Beom-kye said.
The bill will require the state auditor to disclose decisions made by its Council of Commissioners and report its internal inspection results to the president and parliament.
It also prohibits the auditor from making an interim announcement of an inspection or requesting investigative authority for a probe before getting approval from the council. The carrying out of inspections on ordinary citizens will also be prohibited.
The DP has slammed the BAI’s recent inspections into cases related to the previous Moon Jae-in administration, including the handling of the death of a South Korean fisheries official at the hands of North Korea in 2020 and the nuclear phase-out policy, claiming they were politically motivated.
Park said the DP will also push for a parliamentary investigation into the BAI and the prosecution on charges of abusing power.
Source: Yonhap News Agency