The Judiciary Committee Adopts Prosecutor Kang Vaccine and Um Hee-jun's Impeachment Hearings...an opposition-led vote

The National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee held a plenary session today (27th) and passed a hearing plan to investigate the impeachment of Kang Vaccine, the deputy prosecutor of the Seongnam branch of Suwon District Prosecutors' Office, and Um Hee-joon, the head of the Bucheon branch of Incheon District Prosecutors' Office.

In the vote, 11 out of 16 members of the present committee voted in favor of and 5 against, and the hearing will be held on the 11th of next month. In addition, all Democratic Party lawmakers participated in the impeachment motion of the two prosecutors, represented by Rep. Jang Kyung-tae of the Democratic Party of Korea.

The Democratic Party of Korea claimed that Deputy Prosecutor Kang illegally seized and searched during the investigation of public opinion manipulation in last year's presidential election, and in the case of Um Ji-won, the suspicion of "Hang Myung-sook, former prime minister's perjury teacher" in 2011 was the main reason for the impeachment.

Yoo Sang-beom, secretary of the People's Power, objected, saying, "In the previous two prosecutor impeachment hearings, we only had political disputes without proof," but Kim Seung-won, secretary of the Democratic Party, countered, "The National Assembly should investigate the impeachment on behalf of the people for the prosecutors' illegal activities."

Earlier on July 2, the Democratic Party of Korea also proposed an impeachment motion against Kim Young-chul, deputy prosecutor of the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors' Office, and Park Sang-yong, deputy prosecutor of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office, and hearings were held in August and October, respectively.