SEOUL – The main opposition Democratic Party of South Korea on Dec 7 filed an impeachment motion against Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min, accusing him of involvement in President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived imposition of martial law this week.
The liberal party said in a statement that it submitted the impeachment motion to the National Assembly at 10.30am (9.30am Singapore time). The party plans to report the motion during Dec 7’s plenary session, where the vote on President Yoon’s impeachment will take place.
The vote on the minister’s impeachment is expected on Dec 10.
A day earlier, the liberal party’s senior party leader Kim Min-seok urged immediate action against the minister, alleging that he “conspired to plan the illegal martial law, distorted the proceedings of a Cabinet meeting to approve such a matter and defended the illegal martial law”.
Mr Kim also raised the possibility of another attempt to declare martial law and demanded that Mr Lee be stripped of his authority in relation to South Korea’s Martial Law Act.
The Act designates that only the ministers of defence and interior are eligible to recommend martial law to the president, though it was not Mr Lee but former defence minister Kim Yong-hyun who had proposed the martial law declaration to Mr Yoon. With Mr Kim having recently resigned, Mr Lee is now the sole Cabinet member with that power.
This will be Mr Lee’s second time facing the possibility of impeachment. In February 2023, the National Assembly voted to impeach him for his handling of the Itaewon crowd crush. His impeachment was later dismissed by the Constitutional Court in July. Mr Lee resumed his ministerial duties following the court’s decision. THE KOREA HERALD/ ASIA NEWS NETWORK
