Constitutional Court Throws Out Impeachment of ROK Interior Minister
The impeachment of the Interior Minister was political since the Democratic Party controls the National Assembly. They have been trying to turn the Itaewon tragedy into President Yoon’s Sewol and so far have been unsuccessful:
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday unanimously overturned the National Assembly’s impeachment of Interior Minister Lee Sang-min over last year’s fatal crowd crush in Itaewon, central Seoul, which claimed 159 lives.
Lee, who had been suspended from his duties, was immediately reinstated after the court decision. (…..)The court’s decision came 167 days since the National Assembly passed an impeachment motion against Lee, marking the first time the legislative body impeached a sitting Cabinet member. (……)
Joong Ang Ilbo
In a much-anticipated ruling, all nine judges of the Constitutional Court ruled against the impeachment on Tuesday, saying that from a constitutional and legal perspective, it was hard to believe that Lee failed his constitutional duty to protect citizens by violating the Framework Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety and the State Public Officials Act.
“The Itaewon tragedy did not arise or escalate due to a single cause or specific individual,” said the court. “It was the result of combined factors, such as each government agency’s failure to cultivate integrated response capabilities to large-scale disasters.”
You can read more at the link, but as the court ruled the Interior Minister should not be working at the police station level ensuring where police officers are deployed for crowd control. Additionally as I have always said if Itaewon Station was shut down that night, that would have prevented this disaster as well.
It was the Interior Minister who overruled and denied the Itaewon police request for reinforcements for Halloween, weeks before the tragedy. It was the Interior Minister who transferred the Itaewon police to guard Yoon’s new residence and tasked to smother protests in other areas of the city. If it wasn’t his task to move around police officers, what was he doing moving police officers around the city?
There was enough police officers available in Itaewon, they were just not enough tasked to do crowd control. Like I said before shutting down Itaewon Station would have prevented the whole thing to begin with. These are all things that should have been done levels well below the Interior Minister. This is just the Korean left trying to get a scalp to pin the Itaewon tragedy on the Yoon administration to further build a case to eventually impeach him.
@GIKorea
I think the DPK knew they would lose the case, but went on it with it anyways since they have to show their supporters and the rest of the public that they are not sitting idly by.
As for Yoon’s potential impeachment, the DPK don’t need Itaewon. Yoon’s wife will most likely give the DPK the ammunition they need for the impeachment, just like Choe Soon-sil did for Park Geun-hye’s impeachment.