Kim Taegyu Expulsion Resolution Passes Plenary Session, With 166 of 167 Votes in Favor (Updated)

Vote held with People Power Party lawmakers absent
Resolution calling for expulsion is not legally binding

A resolution calling for the expulsion of People Power Party lawmaker Kim Taegyu passed the National Assembly plenary session on November 5.

The National Assembly held a plenary session that day and voted by secret ballot on the resolution calling for Kim's expulsion. It passed with 166 votes in favor and one invalid vote out of 167 votes cast. People Power Party lawmakers reportedly did not participate in the vote.

Kim drew controversy after remarks during a JTBC YouTube broadcast on September 30 in which he suggested that former President Yoon Suk Yeol's December 3 emergency martial law and the process by which Chun Doo-hwan's new military regime took power did not constitute an insurrection. Kim has countered that his remarks were misrepresented.

Yonhap News Agency

The resolution was adopted by the National Assembly's Steering Committee on October 2, with all 16 members present voting in favor, while People Power Party lawmakers were absent.

Before the plenary vote, Chun Junho, the Democratic Party of Korea's senior deputy floor leader for parliamentary operations, presented the committee's review findings. He said, "Lawmaker Kim denied outright that either the December 3 emergency martial law or Chun Doo-hwan's new military regime constituted an insurrection, thereby denying the insurrections committed by Yoon Suk Yeol and Chun Doo-hwan." He added, "Under the pretext of historical reassessment, he even denied the Supreme Court ruling, finalized after three trials, that found Chun Doo-hwan to be the ringleader of an insurrection, undermining the rule of law and making anti-constitutional remarks."

Chun said, "This was an anti-historical act that insulted the victims of the May 18 Democratization Movement and their families, who sacrificed their lives for the development of the Republic of Korea's constitutional history and democracy, and inflicted secondary harm on them." He added, "The resolution, calling for the expulsion of lawmaker Kim Taegyu for violating the duties under the National Assembly Act to uphold the Constitution and to maintain the dignity of a representative of the people, was adopted as originally proposed."

The resolution calls for Kim's expulsion but is not legally binding. Any actual expulsion would require review by the National Assembly's Special Committee on Ethics and the support of at least two-thirds of all lawmakers in a plenary vote. The committee is not currently constituted.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.