Kim Yong-min "Impeachment Proposal for 4 Prosecutors... Signatures Exceed 60"

Opposition Lawmaker Kim Yong-min MBC Radio Interview
"Not Sure About Leadership's Thoughts... Party Should Unite on Policy"

Kim Yong-min, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, explained the reason for pushing the impeachment motion against four prosecutors involved in the 'Lime entertainment and Yoo Woo-sung retaliatory prosecution' cases, saying, "We need to clearly show that prosecutors can be impeached if they commit wrongdoing, so that prosecutors will exercise their prosecutorial power for the people."

On the 23rd, Kim appeared on MBC Radio's 'Kim Jong-bae's Focus' and said, "Under the Prosecutor Disciplinary Act, prosecutors can only be dismissed. No matter how serious the prosecutor's misconduct is, they cannot be removed from office," adding, "The only system that can remove them is the impeachment system."

Regarding the reason for pushing the impeachment motion at this point, he said, "There was a Supreme Court final ruling in 2021 related to retaliatory prosecution," and added, "Since then, I have been advocating for impeachment first, but it took time to form a consensus within the party."

Kim Yong-min, member of the Democratic Party of Korea. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

He continued, "Looking at the prosecutors who received alcohol entertainment from Lime, there is even a joke about a '990,000 won set' for two out of three, but they were not prosecuted, and one was prosecuted but recently acquitted in the first trial," pointing out, "The court recalculated the amount to below 1 million won and dismissed the case."

Kim said, "These three also have very high public anger and consensus has been formed, but none of them have been disciplined yet," adding, "In that case, shouldn't the National Assembly step up and discipline these people?"

Regarding the signatures for the impeachment motion, he said, "We started collecting them individually from early June," and added, "From the tally, I understand there are a little over 60 signatures." He said, "I am not doing this alone; other colleagues and I are persuading and collecting signatures together, and perhaps due to recent media reports, lawmakers have started to show a lot of interest."

Regarding reports that he is distancing himself from the party leadership on this matter, he said, "This is not being communicated or conducted with the party leadership; rather, a few lawmakers including myself are proceeding individually," and added, "I do not yet know the party leadership's thoughts."

In response to criticism that the impeachment motion would be difficult to pass in the National Assembly without being adopted as party policy, he said, "When judges were impeached before, it was not adopted as party policy," and added, "Yet we managed to pass it, and if we get about 100 consents, most lawmakers would effectively be leaning towards approval, so I believe a plenary vote is possible."

He continued, "However, if some agree to sign and others do not, it might cause unnecessary conflicts within the party," and said, "I think it would be better to not think about that at all and to propose it as party policy, or at least effectively as party policy, to unify the will."

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