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The floor leaders of the three main opposition parties join hands before submitted a motion for the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye

The motion for the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye that the three opposition parties submitted to the National Assembly on Dec. 2 states that “The impeachment of President Park and her dismissal from public office are designed to repair the damage done to the fundamental constitutional order, which far exceeds the harm to the country and the leadership vacuum in the government that would result from the suspension of Park’s presidential duties.”

“Through this motion for impeachment, we will reconfirm the inviolable constitutional principle that the people of the Republic of Korea are sovereign over the government and that it is unacceptable for anyone in the government, even the president, to exercise power in a way that betrays the trust and will of the public,” the motion said.

In its conclusion, the motion addresses the fact that Park’s spokesperson characterized the prosecutor’s interim announcement of the findings of their investigation as “a house of cards built of fantasies and conjectures” and that Park broke her promise to cooperate with the prosecutors’ investigation: “The president, who bears the supreme and ultimate responsibility for running the country, violated the rule of law when she disparaged the quasi-judicial conclusions of the prosecutors, who are themselves officers of the state. Furthermore, she squandered any chance of preserving the public trust when she went back on her public promise [to work with the prosecutors] just a few days after making it simply because events were not going her way, ultimately proving that her promise was a lie.”

The motion of impeachment enumerates Park’s violations of the constitution and the law. Park breached the constitution, the motion states, by handing over documents containing classified material to Choi Sun-sil and by allowing Choi and others to meddle in the government and by aiding and abetting them. Such actions contravene the constitutional principle of popular sovereignty (Article 1), the principle of representative democracy (Article 67, Paragraph 1), the regulations on cabinet meetings (Articles 88 and 89) and the president’s duties to defend and abide by the constitution (Article 66, Paragraph 2, and Article 69).

By allowing Choi’s involvement in the appointment of former Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Kim Jong-deok and others, the motion says, Park violated the system of professional public servants (Article 7), the president’s power of appointing public servants (Article 78) and the principle of equality (Article 11). By having former Blue House Senior Secretary for Economic Affairs Ahn Jong-beom extort donations from private companies, Park violated the guarantee of private property (Article 23, Paragraph 1), the freedom to choose one’s occupation (Article 15), her duty to guarantee basic civil liberties (Article 10) and the principle of the market economy (Article 119, Paragraph 1). The motion also accuses Park of infringing on the freedom of the press (Article 21, Paragraph 1) and the freedom to choose one’s occupation (Article 15) by putting pressure on the Segye Ilbo, a daily newspaper, to replace its CEO after it ran a story on the Chung Yoon-hoe documents. It also accuses Park of having failed in her constitutional duty to protect life (Article 10) in her response to the 2014 sinking of the Sewol ferry, which “was almost dereliction of duty.”

The motion also states that Park committed crimes including bribery, abuse of power and extortion, considering the pressure she put on companies to donate money to help establish the Mir and K-Sports Foundations and the privileges that these companies gave to Choi Sun-sil.

By Um Ji-won, staff reporter

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