National Assembly votes to impeach broadcasting watchdog chief

The opposition-led National Assembly voted Friday to impeach Korea Communications Commission (KCC) Chairperson Lee Jin-sook, just two days after she took office.

The impeachment motion passed in a 186-1 vote with one abstention and Lee’s duties were immediately suspended until the Constitutional Court decides whether to endorse or reject the impeachment, a process that usually takes a few months.

The presidential office condemned the action as “anti-constitutional and anti-legal.”

“I would like to ask how the chair of the Korea Communications Commission carried out a serious violation of the Constitution or the law during her one day in office,” presidential spokesperson Jeong Hye-jeon said during a press briefing, expressing “deep regret.”

Lee will wait for the judgment of the Constitutional Court, she said.

“I would like to ask back what the difference is between North Korea sending trash balloons and the opposition party carrying out a trash impeachment,” she added.

Introduced by the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and five other minor parties in an attempt to block what they call the President Yoon Suk Yeol government’s push to control public broadcasting, the motion was reported to the meeting the previous day.

Lee was the fourth KCC chief to face impeachment in less than a year and the first to be impeached because all her predecessors resigned voluntarily in an effort to ensure that a successor could continue the duties of the KCC chairperson that holds the key to important decisions on broadcasters.

The opposition has accused Lee and former KCC chiefs under the Yoon administration of unfairly running the watchdog’s decision-making standing committee, making decisions with two members while leaving the other three of the five positions vacant.

As Lee took office Wednesday, she immediately held a meeting with Kim Tae-gyu, a newly appointed member of the KCC’s standing committee, and appointed six new directors at the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, the major shareholder of MBC TV, in a move strongly denounced by the DP.

The following day, Yoon approved the appointment of seven new board members of public broadcaster KBS. All seven were recommended by the ruling People Power Party.

The five-member KCC standing committee had remained vacant after former Chairperson Kim Hong-il and subsequent acting chairperson Lee Sang-in voluntarily resigned after the DP proposed impeachment motions against them.