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‘Park’s 7 hours on Sewol ferry tragedy’ emerges as variable for impeachment

‘Park’s 7 hours on Sewol ferry tragedy’ emerges as variable for impeachment

Posted December. 08, 2016 07:53,   

Updated December. 08, 2016 08:33

한국어

"President Park Geun-hye’s activities during seven hours on the day of the Sewol ferry’s sinking in 2014" has emerged as a last-minute variable to whether the bill to impeach the embattled president will pass the National Assembly this Friday. The non-Park Geun-hye faction of the ruling Saenuri Party is demanding that the issue over the seven hours be deleted from the impeachment bill. The opposition parties are concerned that if they accept the demand, chances will be high that the bill will pass due to cooperation from the ruling party, while otherwise they could face ramifications from sentiment of the public, which strongly wishes to include the issue.

“If the bill is revised (to delete the issue over the seven hours), it will generate momentum to secure a far more stable number of lawmakers supportive of the bill, and we should agonize over this,” Rep. Hwang Yeong-cheol of the Saenuri Party said after a meeting of the emergency committee on Wednesday.

However, the opposition parties are poised to inspect and review Park’s activities on the day of the Sewol ferry disaster. “The Saenuri Party should not seek any explanations on the impeachment bill anymore,” Chairwoman Choo Mi-ae of the main opposition Minjoo Party said while expressing her party’s objection to the demand. “Even a single word in the content on the Sewol ferry issue in the impeachment bill against President Park, which was finalized through agreement between the three parties, can be deleted or changed,” said Ahn Cheol-soo, former co-chairman of the People’s Party.

However, the key concern is that passing the impeachment bill is impossible without cooperation by the non-Park faction of the ruling party. It means that the contents in the bill could be revised in part. “We are agonizing over whether this (the Sewol ferry) is an issue that is significant enough to block the bill from passing, or whether we have to delete it to ensure the bill’s passing,” Floor Leader Woo Sang-ho of the Minjoo Party said. The impeachment bill, which was submitted on Saturday for parliamentary vote, cites the seven hours regarding the Sewol ferry as a cause for Park’s impeachment, by suggesting “The president violated the duty to protect the right to life, which is guaranteed under Article 10 under the Constitution.”

If the ‘seven hours’ is excluded from the impeachment bill, the Constitutional Court will unlikely make judgment on this issue. A source in the court said, “In principle, impeachment will be determined in light of the causes cited in the resolution on impeachment motion. Factuality of issues is based on the resolution.” The Constitutional Court’s ruling on the impeachment motion against former President Roh Moo-hyun in 2003 also suggested that “The Constitutional Court is bound by the causes of impeachment cited in the resolution on impeachment motion. Hence, the court shall not regard reasons for impeachment that are not cited in the resolution as causes to determine impeachment.’

In contrast, when considering the overall purpose of the reasons for the impeachment, experts cautiously suggest that an issue could potentially be a reason for impeachment review if such an issue is a cause of controversy that backs up factuality or if an issue is practically a cause for judgement. “When a witness makes statement or that new facts are discovered in the review process, we cannot say that the issues are not subject of judgement just because they are not included in the causes for the National Assembly’s impeachment motion," a source in the Constitutional Court said.



Hyung-Jun Hwang constant25@donga.com · Na-Ri Shin journari@donga.com