Kwon Seong-dong, 8 years ago, 'change the reason' → not now...Why?

[Anchor]
Even during the impeachment of former President Park Geun Hye in 2017, there is a precedent that the reason for the impeachment was fixed at the National Assembly level.

At that time, Kwon Sung-dong, the floor leader of the People's Power, who was a member of the National Assembly's impeachment prosecution, actively explained the purpose of changing the reason, unlike his recent appearance.

Reporter Lim Sung-jae's report.

[Reporter]
In the impeachment process eight years ago, the National Assembly's prosecution removed the bribery and coercion charges that former President Park Geun Hye demanded foundation contributions from the heads of large corporations from the impeachment.

In consideration of the nature of the impeachment trial, Kwon Sung-dong, the current floor leader of the People's Power, who was a member of the impeachment committee at the time, explained that he took the judgment out of the criminal law and focused on violation of the constitution.

[Kwon Seong-dong / Then National Assembly impeachment committee member (January 2017): Whether or not a crime is committed is not subject to a constitutional trial, but to a criminal trial. [We plan to restate and submit the bribery case, such as whether it violates market economics]

In particular, he compared changing the reasons for impeachment to changing the indictment, making it clear that there is no need to get approval from more than two-thirds of the registered lawmakers like the impeachment resolution.

Currently, the Democratic Party, which is seeking to change the reason for the impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol's president, is borrowing the logic of floor leader Kwon's past.

As in 2017, the government is in a position to reorganize the reasons focusing on constitutional violations, excluding the crime of rebellion, which is a judgment under the criminal law, for an early impeachment trial.

[Jeon Hyun-hee / Supreme Council member of the Democratic Party of Korea: I confirm what (floor leader Kwon) said in the sense of getting his act together. / He stressed that re-arranging the reasons for impeachment (mainly in violation of the Constitution) does not require a National Assembly resolution.

However, he also explained that he could not hold President Yoon for rebellion, but that it could be considered in a separate criminal trial.

The ruling party also rejected the argument that more than two-thirds of the registered lawmakers need approval to change the reason for impeachment, citing past precedents.

However, the ruling party's position is that the exclusion of the rebellion, which the Democratic Party of Korea used as one of the two justifications for impeachment, is different from the exclusion of bribery eight years ago, when "state affairs manipulation" was the core.

[Kwon Seong-dong / People's Power Floor Leader: One of the current presidential impeachment cases is emergency martial law and the other is civil war. So because it's a very important part, you can't handle the important part at your disposal by the impeachment prosecutor.]

This is why some argue that the direction of the ruling party's departure vote would have been different if the impeachment vote did not include the crime of rebellion.

In the end, the ruling and opposition parties differ over whether "excluding the crime of rebellion" is a simple change in wording or a significant change in the reason for prosecution.

However, some criticize that they take a different position every time depending on their political advantages and disadvantages.

I'm YTN's Lim Sungjae.

Reporter for filming
: Lee Sung-mo Han Sang-won
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video: Yang Young-woon

Design: Lee Na-eun