A bill to dismiss a minister

Yim Cheol-ho, a former agriculture minister, was stigmatized as an “incompetent minister” by the third National Assembly. The price of rice skyrocketed by 67 percent and even the price of flour, an alternative to rice, doubled within five months after his inauguration in 1955. While the National Assembly demanded for a ration of rice, he insisted on a public auction. When he was asked what the price would be like in case of a public auction, he gave a disappointing answer, saying, “Only God knows the direction of the price of rice.” A former leadership in the ruling party, Yim was dismissed by the lawmakers in about six months since his appointment.

Kwon Oh-byeong, a former culture and education minister, former prosecutor, and justice minister, faced with a great deal of trouble while serving as a culture and education minister. The ministry ordered private universities to close, drove out and disciplined professors and students who opposed the Korea-Japan summit, and the forceful enforcement of the Charter of National Education. When he fought against a lawmaker in an extraordinary parliamentary session, saying, “Cancel what you said!” and both ruling and opposition party lawmakers protested against him, he said, “It’s not in the parliamentary records, look at the records!” and eventually was dismissed by the National Assembly. Some 40 lawmakers of the ruling party cast dissident vote. It was due to an internal strife in the party as some in the party wanted to check then President Park Chung-hee who wanted a prolonged one-man rule by reforming the Constitution allowing him to serve three terms.

Two years later, a bill to dismiss Interior Minister Oh Chi-seong was introduced in the National Assembly for exposing security vacuum including Silmido, a project where criminals were secretly hired and trained to kill the North Korean dictator. Despite the order of then President Park who said no one in the ruling party should agree on the bill, the four bigwigs in the ruling party (Kim Seong-gon, Baek Nam-eok, Gil Jae-ho, and Kim Jin-man) disobeyed him. The central intelligence agency plucked out Kim Seong-gon’s mustache and some 20 disobedient lawmakers were taken and clubbed.

Back in 2001 and 2003, the opposition party pushed for a bill to dismiss Yim Dong-won, a unification minister, and Kim Do-gwan, an interior minister, at a time when the opposition party held a majority parliamentary seat. Yim was dismissed because some pro-North Korean people’s attitude at the August 5 Unification Festival held in Pyongyang, while Kim was dismissed due to college student union's protest occupying a U.S. armored vehicle. The National Assembly passed a bill to dismiss Kim Jae-soo, an agricultural minister, on Saturday, which is a revenge by the majority opposition in a decade. This came despite the apology of the ruling Saenuri Party’s leader for the past wrongdoing in a speech.