Opposition parties float impeachment motion against new KCC head

Opposition parties on Thursday proposed a parliamentary impeachment motion against the new head of the state broadcasting regulator Lee Jin-sook who took office Wednesday, accusing her of making key decisions "unfairly" with only two of the five commissioners currently in office.

The main opposition Democratic Party and five other minor parties floated an impeachment motion against the new regulator chief during a National Assembly plenary session held Thursday afternoon. This marks the Democratic Party's fourth attempt in less than a year to propose an impeachment against the chair of the Korea Communications Commission.

In a joint press conference held in the afternoon, the opposition claimed that Kim breached the law by recommending board members nominated by the ruling party with only two of the total five KCC commissioners in office. Lee is currently one of the two KCC commissioners in office, alongside former vice chairman of the Anti-corruption and Civil Rights Commission Kim Tae-kyu.

The opposition also accused her of suppressing the labor union within public broadcaster MBC during her time as the president of MBC's Daejeon branch.

Under the current law, the Assembly must table and put the impeachment to vote within 24 hours after the motion is reported. The motion is scrapped if it fails to be put to a vote within 96 hours after being reported to the Assembly. The opposition parties plan to bring the motion to a vote on Friday.

The impeachment motion requires the consent of one-third of National Assembly members to be tabled and half of lawmakers to be approved.

Lee would face months-long suspension if the Assembly passed the motion, leading to another leadership vacuum within the KCC. The Constitutional Court is in charge of deciding whether to endorse or reject the impeachment and the decision-making process normally takes around three to five months.

This comes on the heels of President Yoon Suk Yeol's decision early in the day to approve the state broadcasting regulator’s earlier confirmation of seven new board members of public broadcaster KBS, while the KCC confirmed six new board members of a major shareholder of MBC. An official from the presidential office said Thursday that Yoon approved the list of candidates nominated by the ruling People Power Party and recommended by the KCC.

The KCC also decided to appoint six new board members and an auditor for the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, a supervisory body and the major shareholder of MBC, in the same closed-door meeting.

Yoon is the final decision-maker to approve the KBS board members, while the KCC is for the approval of the FBC board members, as the KCC does not need Yoon’s approval to confirm its appointment. The board appointment of the public broadcasters will not be affected after her impeachment motion passes.

One of the FBC board members approved is former special prosecutor-turned-attorney Heo Ik-beom, who was in charge of investigating the high-profile "Druking opinion-rigging scandal” in 2017. The scandal put former South Gyeongsang Gov. Kim Kyoung-soo behind bars for conspiring with a political blogger to manipulate online public opinions to help President Moon Jae-in win the 2017 election. Kim was convicted of violating the country’s election law in 2021 and sentenced to two years in prison, but was released early on special parole in 2022.

The five-member KCC standing committee had remained vacant after two former commissioners Kim Hong-il and Lee Sang-in announced back-to-back resignations in July after the liberal parties sought to impeach them and stop a boardroom nomination for the public broadcasters.