Conflict mounts over removing rebellion crime from impeachment bill

The ruling People Power Party claimed that the National Assembly impeachment committee’s removal of the crime of rebellion from the grounds for impeaching President Yoon Suk Yeol is a “fraud to deceive the people. The Constitutional Court should decline the impeachment bill, and the National Assembly should revote.” The main opposition Democratic Party responded by calling the accusation an “ignorant political offensive.” The Democratic Party launched a counterattack against Kwon Sung-dong, head of the People Power Party’s floor leader, who was the chair of the National Assembly’s impeachment panel during the 2017 impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye, saying that the reasons for the impeachment bill including bribery and coercion were also amended.

“The Democratic Party's exclusion of insurrection from the reasons for impeachment constitutes its admission that impeachment motion was fraudulent with the impeachment bill passed sloppily in haste and that they incited the people through lies,” said Kwon Young-se, chairman of the People Power Party’s emergency committee, at a meeting of its emergency committee and senior lawmakers Sunday. “The impeachment bill should be revoted on. The Constitutional Court should immediately suspend the hearing on the impeachment bill for insurrection and should demand the National Assembly a new bill that is procedurally legitimate.”

The People Power Party’s spokesperson, Seo Ji-young, blasted Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, saying that he withdrew one of the important reasons for the impeachment on his own with the intention of holding a presidential election sooner.”

“The 'impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol' is not a criminal case, but a constitutional trial, so it is only a natural confirmation and clarification, and the very concept of 'removing the crime of rebellion' does not exist,” said Democratic Party of Korea spokesperson Noh Jong-myeon in a briefing on Saturday. ”Not a single act of (Yoon’s) rebellion included in the impeachment bill has been excluded.”


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