2024-02-15 06:11:15
Lee Eun-joo, former Justice Party lawmaker. /News 1
Former Justice Party lawmaker Lee Eun-joo was found guilty by the Supreme Court on the 15th on charges of receiving illegal political funds and providing meals to supporters, and sentenced to eight months in prison and two years of probation. The 2nd Division of the Supreme Court (Chief Justice Lee Dong-won) confirmed the original verdict, which sentenced former lawmaker Lee, who was indicted on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act, to eight months in prison and two years of probation.
The ruling came three years and four months following former lawmaker Lee was indicted. As the trial was delayed, former lawmaker Lee voluntarily resigned on the 25th of last month, having completed more than 90% of his term (4 years). It was a ‘trick resignation’ to hand over the position to the Justice Party’s junior proportional successor.
The court dragged on former lawmaker Lee’s trial for over three years. Former lawmaker Lee was indicted in October 2020 on charges of receiving 3.12 million won in illegal political funds from 77 Seoul Transportation Corporation union members at the end of 2019 ahead of the 21st general election and providing meals worth 370,000 won to supporters.
The first trial verdict was delivered in December 2022, two years and two months later. At the time, former lawmaker Lee applied for a legal review of unconstitutionality, claiming that some of the provisions of the election law applied to him from his first trial were unconstitutional. The court accepted this and handed it over to the Constitutional Court, and the trial was suspended for nearly a year until the Constitutional Court reached its conclusion.
In the first trial that resumed later, former lawmaker Lee was sentenced to 10 months in prison, equivalent to losing his seat as a member of the National Assembly, and two years of probation. Former lawmaker Lee appealed, saying he might not accept the first trial ruling. The appeals court ruling was issued in November of last year, 11 months later. At the time, the court judged that most of what was found guilty in the first trial was correct. His sentence was reduced to eight months in prison and two years probation.
If you are fined more than 1 million won for violating election laws, your election will be invalidated and you will automatically lose your seat as a member of the National Assembly. The fact that former lawmaker Lee resigned from his position on the 25th of last month, before the Supreme Court ruling was even issued, was a ‘trick’ to maintain the Justice Party’s current 6 seats as much as possible until the April general election.
This is an abuse of the fact that from January 30th, 120 days before the end of the term of the 21st National Assembly member (May 29th), succession to the position becomes impossible even if a proportional representative member loses his or her seat. The Justice Party maintained its current number of seats, 6, by succeeding to the seats in a proportional order.
According to the National Assembly Act, for an active member to resign, a majority vote of the enrolled members is required. On the 25th of last month, the ruling and opposition parties approved former lawmaker Lee’s resignation proposal, which was the first item on the agenda of the plenary session of the National Assembly, with 179 votes in favor of 264 members present.
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