Three lawmakers on the chopping block for misconduct

Politics

Published: 27 Jan. 2022, 16:49 Updated: 27 Jan. 2022, 17:07

Three lawmakers on the chopping block for misconduct

A plenary session of the parliamentary special committee on ethics discusses the expulsion of three lawmakers accused of misconduct at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul, Thursday. Lawmakers of the main opposition People Power Party, except Rep. Choo Kyung-ho, a deputy floor leader, did not attend the meeting because of late notice from the Democratic Party. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The National Assembly’s special committee on ethics Thursday introduced a proposal to take disciplinary action against three lawmakers accused of misconduct — Reps. Yoon Mee-hyang, Lee Sang-jik and Park Duk-hyum.

Ruling Democratic Party (DP) chief Song Young-gil called for the speedy expulsion of the three lawmakers on Tuesday as he announced sweeping reforms for his party.

DP Rep. Han Byung-do, a party secretary, told reporters after a plenary session that the special ethics committee introduced a motion to take disciplinary measures against the lawmakers before Feb. 15, ahead of the March 9 presidential election.

Yoon and Lee are independents and Park is a lawmaker of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP).

Earlier this month, a parliamentary advisory body of the special ethics committee submitted an opinion that the lawmakers should be expelled from the National Assembly for misconduct.

Yoon, the former head of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, has been accused of embezzling public donations meant for wartime sexual slavery victims, euphemistically referred to as comfort women. A longtime rights activist who was elected as a proportional lawmaker of the DP in April 2020, she was indicted that September and is undergoing trial, facing eight charges including embezzlement, fraud and breach of trust.

Lee, founder of Korean budget carrier Eastar Jet and a second-term lawmaker, was sentenced to six years in prison earlier this month for embezzlement of company funds and breach of trust. He has faced controversy over family corruption, unpaid wages and mass layoffs and defected from the DP in 2020. He was also given a suspended prison sentence in June last year for violating election laws by offering alcoholic beverages to electorates in Jeonju ahead of the 2020 parliamentary elections.

Park, a third-term lawmaker, faces corruption allegations for helping his family-run company win national and local government construction projects when he served on the National Assembly’s land, infrastructure and transport committee. Park left the PPP in September 2020 but was reinstated to the party 15 months later.

A subcommittee of the parliamentary special ethics committee is required to review what disciplinary action will be taken, but the PPP has not yet submitted its list.

Four PPP lawmakers were absent from the meeting Thursday, and PPP Rep. Choo Kyung-ho, the party's deputy floor leader and the only member of the committee who was present, expressed regret over the DP’s last-minute “unilateral notification” on Wednesday afternoon of the meeting scheduled for that morning.

However, he added, “We have no reason to reject the review itself or deliberately delay it,” adding that the party will “quickly submit a list to the subcommittee.”

If the motion to expel the three lawmakers is approved in a parliamentary plenary session, it will be the first such case since the establishment of the special ethics committee in 1991.

When former President Kim Young-sam was expelled from the National Assembly in 1979, an ethics committee did not exist. Rep. Shim Hak-bong, a lawmaker of the PPP’s predecessor, the Saenuri Party, who was under investigation for sexual assault in 2015, resigned hours before an plenary session voted on his expulsion as a lawmaker.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]