By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
Residents of Hanam, Gyeonggi Province have begun taking official steps to dismiss the city’s mayor, Kim Hwang-sik.
The move came against the mayor’s plan to allow the construction of a large-scale cremation facility in the city.
It is the first time that a group of citizens has taken legal action to remove an elected government official since the Citizens’ Dismissal Law came into effect last May.
The mayor announced his plan to build a cremation facility, one of the most disliked facilities by residents, but he is continuing to express strong commitment to the project as he believed the construction could help the city earn enough money to build a new inter-city subway line in the city, which costs a total of 200 billion won.
A group lobbying against the project, the Hanam Citizens’ Dismissal Committee, has elected two citizens to act as representatives in drafting procedures that would oust the mayor and three supporting officials.
The two citizen representatives have received a certificate from the city’s election commission, which grants them the right to take a legal action to dismiss the mayor, and to receive remuneration for their collective action.
The committee has also selected 4,000 mandators, who will work for a campaign to obtain signatures from citizens who agree to discharge the mayor.
If the mandators pass a qualification examination of the local election authority, they could launch the signature-seeking campaign as early as Friday.
For the dismissal of the mayor, the committee needs to collect at least 15 percent of the local residents’ signatures first. The mayor can be legally dismissed after roughly one third of the city’s 105,054 eligible voters sign on the agreement.
But the move is likely to face many obstacles. The mayor is also considering taking a legal action against the citizen’s involved in the process.
According to the law, the request for the dismissal of elected government officials can only be accepted when citizens prove illegality, corruption, neglect of duty or abuse of the rights of officials.