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| President Moon Yonhap |
By Do Je-hae
President Moon Jae-in is receiving growing criticism for allegedly failing to properly address the national health emergency here following the COVID-19 outbreak, with some citizens calling for his impeachment.
A presidential impeachment petition was filed on the website of the National Assembly secretariat last month and has since gained over 100,000 signatures.
According to Assembly regulations concerning online petitions, any that receive more than 100,000 signatures in 30 days are subject to review by a relevant standing committee. The committee has 90 days to complete the review before reaching a decision on whether to put it to a vote in a plenary session.
"Since the petition has met the requirements for a standing committee review, Speaker Moon Hee-sang has been briefed about it," an official from the Assembly secretariat said. "It will be forwarded to a standing committee soon."
The Assembly will soon decide whether the House Steering Committee, which deals with issues relating to Cheong Wa Dae, or the Judiciary Committee, which looks into the legal process of impeachment, will review the petition.
With the 20th National Assembly's term finishing on May 29, chances are low that the current Assembly will be able to process a bill for presidential impeachment within the remainder of its term.
The petition, which calls for removing Moon from office for neglecting his responsibility to safeguard public health, has captured a significant level of attention, with the 100,000 signatures gained within four days of its filing, Feb. 28.
The petitioner, identified only as Han, claimed that Moon "threatened the people's lives" by not implementing a stringent entry ban on China. "If the President really cared about his own people, he should have banned entry from all parts of China," the person wrote.
"Now even China is banning Koreans' entry to the country. Korea now has the world's second-largest number of coronavirus patients and the country's image is being tarnished. I can't trust the government, which lied that the epidemic would end soon and said face masks would be available for purchase at post offices from Feb. 27 while it had not talked with the postal authorities about it."
There is a similar petition on Cheong Wa Dae's online petition site, which has gathered more than 1.4 million signatures. The presidential office is supposed to respond to any petition with support from more than 200,000 people, however so far it has not provided a response. "Since the petition has surpassed one million, a response will be made in due course," a senior presidential aide told reporters last week.
In May 2019, there was another petition on the Cheong Wa Dae site calling for Moon's impeachment that gained 250,000 signatures. The petitioner at the time called for the President's removal for his "poor" inter-Korean policy and "negligence" in an online opinion rigging scandal allegedly involving his aides. Cheong Wa Dae at the time said presidential impeachment was a matter to be decided on only by the Constitutional Court and the National Assembly.
