On several occasions in his recent articles dealing with the political consequences of the disaster in Itaewon on October 29, 2022, the author has referred to the attempts of the Together Democratic Party (the Democrats) to secure the “dismissal” of Lee Sang-min, Minister of the Interior and Safety (a post that is the equivalent of Minister of Interior Affairs). Now they have finally succeeded, but at what cost?
On December 11 last year South Korea’s National Assembly voted for the impeachment of Lee Sang-min (MPs from the ruling People Power Party abstained from the vote) but on December 12 the Presidential Administration postponed making a final decision until the end of the police investigation into the disaster.
Back then, as readers will remember, the special police investigative group decided not to bring charges against the Minister or any other officials in the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. The investigators reached the conclusion that the prevention of disasters and emergency response operations are the responsibility of local, and not national government. But the Democrats still had the option of calling for a Parliamentary investigation – and they, although in opposition, still have a majority in the National Assembly!
On January 30 a group of opposition parties presented to the National Assembly a report on the investigation into the Itaewon disaster, drawn up by a specially formed Parliamentary committee and accepted despite the Conservatives’ boycott. That report accuses Lee Sang-min of failing to take the necessary measures and thus prevent the disaster, and also of failing to establish a central disaster response authority, which he, as the Minister of the Interior and Safety, was legally bound to do.
“Despite the fact that a major disaster has occurred, and that 159 innocent people have lost their lives, nobody in the government has apologized, and no-one has behaved in a responsible way and resigned,” claimed Park Hong-keun, leader of the Democratic Party group in the National Assembly, conveniently forgetting that in the first few days after the disaster some key figures in the government had offered their apologies. These included President Yoon Suk-yeol Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the Minister of the Interior and Safety, Lee Sang-min, the head of the National Police Agency, Yoon Hee-keun, and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon. Or perhaps, as the Democrats are wont to claim, “those apologies were not sincere enough.”
On February 6, 2023, the Democratic Party group in the National Assembly decided to initiate the impeachment of Lee Sang-min and lay the blame for the October 29 disaster at his feet. As Park Hong-keun claimed, “holding the Minister responsible for the disaster will enable us to protect the values enshrined in the Constitution and put into effect the will of the people.”
On February 8, 2023 the National Assembly voted to impeach Lee Sang-min for “showing no regret and taking no responsibility even after the deaths of 159 precious lives.” The Democrats’ initiative was supported by 179 out of 300 deputies, with 109 voting against it and 5 votes being ruled invalid. Seven deputies abstained from the vote.
President Yoon Suk-yeol’s government condemned the impeachment as a “rejection of parliamentary principles” which would “go down as a shameful episode in the history of our Parliament”, and Lee Sang-min has announced that he will cooperate with the impeachment proceedings in good faith.
The Conservatives accuse the Democratic party of using the impeachment process for political ends at a time when the Democrats’ leader, Lee Jae-myung is being questioned in connection with a number of corruption scandals, in which he is likely to be charged.
As a result, Lee Sang-min has been suspended from the performance of his duties until the Constitutional Court decides whether to uphold or overrule the decision of the Assembly. The court has 180 days to make a decision, and if 6 out of the 9 justices of the Court vote in favor of the impeachment, it will enter into effect. This is the third impeachment in South Korea’s history and the first time when the procedure has been used against a senior civil servant rather than a president. The question is, how successful will the impeachment be?
Let us begin by considering it from a strictly procedural point of view. Firstly, in an impeachment the person responsible for bringing the charges is the chairman of the parliamentary legislative and judicial committee, a position currently held by the Conservative lawmaker Kim Doe-up. The Democrats have thus already expressed “concern that he may not carry out his role actively, due to his affiliation with the ruling party”.
Secondly, in the Constitutional Court the panel of justices hearing the challenge to the impeachment will be presided by Lee Jong-seok. The choice of presiding judge, while apparently random (the choice is made by a “digital algorithm”) is a problem for the Democrats, since Lee Jong-seok is seen as Conservative-leaning, and, what is more, he was a classmate of President Yoon Suk-yeol at the Law faculty of Seoul National University.
Thirdly, the court has half a year to issue its decision, and a lot can happen in that time. For example, during the impeachment of Roh Moo-hyun, back in 2004, in the period between the vote on the impeachment in the National Assembly and the ruling of the Constitutional Court, there was a general election, which was won by Roh Moo-hyun. In the circumstances, not surprisingly, the Court chose to reverse the Assembly’s decision.
Fourthly, unlike a motion for an official to be dismissed, an impeachment requires more concrete proof – specifically that the accused person has violated the Constitution or national law while performing his duties. And, in the view of the present author, the charges that have been brought against the Minister are very flimsy.
As the Korea Herald, a Conservative daily, points out, experts in constitutional law consider that the chances of the Court’s upholding Lee Sang-min’s impeachment are fairly small.
But, more significantly, Lee Sang-min’s impeachment has clearly demonstrated that the Democrats have undermined a fundamental element in the working of a democratic state. After all, impeachment is a measure of last resort, and should only be used in extreme cases – when a president has broken the Constitution or behaved in an unacceptable manner.
During the 2004 impeachment the then president was openly supported by the party which he had founded, and the situation was exacerbated by the death of Nam Sang-guk, which made it clear to everyone that poisoning his political opponents (or other people selected to serve as an example to others), or driving them to commit suicide formed an inherent part of Roh Moo-hyun’s approach to politics. In the case of the 2016 impeachment, there was no violation of the Constitution (as it subsequently emerged) but the voting was accompanied by large-scale demonstrations by protestors who were, at that stage, unaware that the allegations of “unprecedented corruption” were false.
As for the impeachment of Lee Sang-min, this is clearly NOT a case of a minister exceeding his authority after learning about a disaster. The investigation has not revealed any evidence that Lee Sang-min acted illegally. There has been no corruption or abuse of power. Nor were there any direct orders that contributed to the disaster.
In effect Lee Sang-min has been impeached because he refused to don sackcloth and ashes and, instead of resigning, continued to work in order to mitigate the consequences of the disaster. The sole reason for the impeachment is the fact that the Democrats have 50%+1 vote, which gives them the ability to force through any proposal that does not require a supermajority of two thirds. As noted in the conservative press, “the Democratic Party processed the unconvincing and unjustifiable motion on the back of its large majority in the Assembly. It was an act of tyranny by the majority party.”
And there is little doubt as to the reasons for the behavior of the Democratic opposition. Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party leader, has been questioned by investigators, and prosecutors are currently considering whether or not to have him arrested, or at least to press charges against him. The Democrats are therefore doing everything they can to deflect attention from their own woes, and have chosen, not for the first time, to make use of a tragedy to achieve their ends.
But if the Democrats think that impeaching the minister will provide Lee Jae-myung with immunity from the charges brought against him, they are wrong. Of course the Conservatives and Democrats both have low popularity ratings, and in recent polls the difference between their ratings is statistically insignificant, and it is safe to say that even if Lee Jae-myung is not yet in the fire, he is definitely in the frying pan.
There is one more question of concern to the present author, and, almost certainly the Democrats themselves: if the Constitutional Court overrules the impeachment, do they have a Plan B? Because if that happens the party’s reputation will be seriously dented and possibly may have to face accusations of slander in run up to the 2024 parliamentary elections.
However many of the present author’s respondents believe that by the time the court considers the case, everyone will have lost interest. The impeachment of the minister is a rehearsal for a possible impeachment of the president, and if the democrats are able to scrape together two thirds of the votes they will certainly find a pretext, which may be just as risible as the present one.
So, let us sum up. It is difficult to deny that Lee Sang-min bears a moral and symbolic responsibility, but whether he should be legally responsible is a very different matter. The impeachment of the Minister of the Interior and Safety should therefore be seen not as an instance of democratic institutions in action, or as a genuine response to the Itaewon disaster, but as a desperate attempt by the Democratic Party to rock the boat and save their party leader. It looks as if the next six months are going to be a turbulent time in South Korean domestic politics.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online journal “New Eastern Outlook.”
