SEOUL — South Korean lawmakers voted on Wednesday to question the inside minister over his responses to a lethal Halloween crush, setting the stage for him to change into the nation’s first cupboard member ousted by the legislature.
READ: Timeline of a catastrophe: Seoul’s deadly crowd crush
The impeachment movement was handed by a broadly anticipated 179-109 margin in a secret poll within the 300-member single chamber, the place the primary opposition Democratic Party holds a 169-seat majority. The assist of no less than 150 members of the meeting was required to move it.
The parliament’s justice committee will assessment the movement earlier than sending it to the Constitutional Court, which might determine whether or not to uphold the impeachment, a course of that would take as much as six months.
The Democrats and different opposition events had pushed to expel the inside minister, Lee Sang-min, urging him to bear accountability for botched responses to the crush.
The Oct. 29 incident killed 159 individuals and injured 196 when revelers flooded slim alleyways within the fashionable nightlife district of Itaewon to benefit from the first coronavirus mask-free Halloween festivities in three years.
Lee and the police have confronted criticism over their dealing with of the tragedy, particularly after publicly launched transcripts of emergency calls confirmed that many voters warned of impending hazard and referred to as for assist hours earlier than the stampede.
Lee has apologized for the flawed responses however stated on Monday when requested whether or not he was prepared to resign that his precedence is to plot steps to forestall such a tragedy from recurring and guarantee their implementation.
President Yoon Suk-yeol had rejected the opposition’s demand he sack Lee, and his workplace and ruling get together denounced the Democrats for abusing their majority energy to press forward with the impeachment.
“It is the renunciation of parliamentary democracy. It will be recorded as a shameful history in parliamentary politics,” Yoon’s workplace stated in a press release after the movement’s passage.
Tensions flared between households of the crush victims and the Seoul authorities this week after they arrange an unauthorized memorial in entrance of metropolis corridor. City officers stated on Tuesday that the memorial violated guidelines and ordered its elimination inside per week.
In 2017, President Park Geun-hye turned South Korea’s first elected chief to be expelled from workplace when the Constitutional Court upheld her impeachment. The courtroom dismissed an impeachment movement in 2014 for President Roh Moo-hyun. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
