Jung Kyung-tae, a lawmaker from the People Power Party, called for the resignation of Yoon Min-woo, the chair of the party's Central Ethics Committee, and the dissolution of the committee on August 5. He stated that the committee has lost its fairness and equity.
During a press conference at the National Assembly, Jung said, "The Ethics Committee has completely lost its function and trust as a fair adjudicating body." He pointed out that the committee's decision-making quorum has been lowered due to the successive resignations of its members, claiming it has lost procedural legitimacy from the start.
Jung also raised concerns about allegations that Yoon shared disciplinary materials with outsiders in advance, stating, "If this is true, the Ethics Committee chair has violated Article 3, Section 2 of the committee's regulations regarding confidentiality. If the person in charge of adjudication shared details about the disciplinary subject, the content, and the decision with outsiders and discussed the handling direction, it can no longer be considered a fair adjudication."
He added, "It is a situation where the chair could be criticized as a collusion chair planning political discipline, and he has no choice but to resign immediately for violating fairness and confidentiality obligations."
Furthermore, he urged the immediate activation of the party's audit committee to investigate the Ethics Committee's alleged misconduct, demanding a swift, transparent, and thorough investigation into who shared disciplinary materials with outsiders or improperly intervened in the disciplinary process.
Jung emphasized the need to dissolve the Ethics Committee, which operates unilaterally under the chair's authority, and to reconstitute it with fair individuals who are thoroughly independent from the party leadership.
Regarding the expulsion of independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon, he stated that if the chair shared the disciplinary content with outsiders beforehand, the expulsion should be revoked. He noted, "The regulations of the People Power Party's Central Ethics Committee clearly state in Article 3, Section 1 that the committee must maintain fairness and objectivity, but it has directly violated this principle by arbitrarily selecting disciplinary subjects and criteria, applying different standards based on political positions for similar issues."
He concluded, "What the People Power Party needs now is not retaliatory discipline against specific individuals, but to establish a fair and independent Ethics Committee that can regain the trust of the public."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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