Impeachment Motion Against Choo Mi-ae Rejected as Expected... Joo Ho-young Says "Defections from Ruling Party Emerged"

Speaker of the National Assembly Park Byeong-seok announced the rejection of the impeachment motion against Minister of Justice Chu Mi-ae at the plenary session of the National Assembly on the 23rd. The impeachment motion against the Minister of Justice was rejected with 109 votes in favor and 179 votes against. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporters Kim Hyemin, Im Chunhan] The impeachment motion against Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae, proposed by the United Future Party and the People’s Party, was rejected as expected on the 23rd, while Joo Ho-young, floor leader of the United Future Party, claimed that there were dissenting votes from the ruling party.

On the afternoon of the same day, the National Assembly held a plenary session and rejected the impeachment motion with 109 votes in favor, 179 against, and 4 invalid votes out of 292 members present.

The conservative bloc’s votes totaled 110, consisting of 103 from the United Future Party, 3 from the People’s Party, and 4 from independent lawmakers formerly affiliated with the United Future Party. The ruling bloc’s votes totaled 179, including 176 from the Democratic Party and 3 from the Open Democratic Party. Therefore, it was interpreted that there were no dissenting votes from the ruling party, which had attracted political attention. Earlier, the Democratic Party and the United Future Party held party meetings just before the plenary session to enforce voting discipline.

However, immediately after the rejection, Floor Leader Joo told reporters, “It appears that more than six votes from the Democratic Party side were different.”

Joo said, “Two United Future Party lawmakers, Ha Tae-kyung and Park Hyung-soo, were absent, and independent lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun also did not attend, so out of 110 members, 3 were missing, but there were 109 votes in favor,” adding, “If we assume that there were no invalid votes on our side, then all 4 abstentions would be from the Democratic Party side, and abstentions are practically not votes in favor, right?”

Additionally, it was noted that the Justice Party, classified as part of the ruling bloc, had set ‘opposition to the impeachment motion’ as its party stance and attended the plenary session, leading to interpretations that the number of votes against the motion was lower than expected.

However, it is reported that among the 4 invalid votes, only about 1 was a vote in favor. Even if there were dissenting votes from the ruling party, the analysis suggests they would have been minimal, around 2 votes.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.