Petition to expel New Reform Party lawmaker Lee Jun-seok closes, second only to former President Yoon Seok-yeol in history; 604,630 people agree (South Korea)

A petition to expel Lee Jun-seok, a lawmaker from the Reform New Party, from the National Assembly has been closed with more than 600,000 signatures. This is the second largest number of signatures from a single lawmaker in the history of the National Assembly after former President Yoon Seok-yeol.
This is the second-highest number of petitions with public consent. The National Assembly announced that the petition, which began on June 4, had ended as of midnight on the 5th, with 604,630 people signing up.
This is the second highest number of petitions in history, following the petition calling for the immediate introduction of an impeachment bill against President Yoon Seok-yeol (1.43 million people) submitted in June last year.
In third place was the petition calling for the impeachment of President Yoon Seok-yeol and the creation of a special investigation bill for treason, which closed in January this year and garnered the support of around 400,000 people.
Rep. Lee was criticized for making inappropriate remarks about women during a television debate between presidential candidates on May 27.
In response, legal professionals and civic groups filed charges against Rep. Lee for violating the Information and Communications Network Act and the Public Offices Election Act, and calls for his expulsion from parliament spread, with a national petition being launched.
If a petition for public consent in the National Assembly receives consent from more than 50,000 people within 30 days, it is automatically sent to the relevant standing committee. This case has been sent to the National Assembly Steering Committee for formal review.
However, since the special ethics committee has not yet been formed, it is unlikely that the petition against Rep. Lee will immediately lead to a disciplinary investigation.
In response, Heo Eun-ah, former head of the New Reform Party, who joined the Democratic Party, posted on her social media the previous day, "The National Assembly is now the key to the people.
"It is now our turn to respond to their request," he said, urging the government to take swift action. "Will the public really accept the excuse that we backed off because there was no special ethics committee? We cannot abstain from responsibility because of a vacuum in the system," Heo said.
"Avoiding this would be a declaration of bankruptcy for democracy. A special ethics committee must be formed immediately and this case must be dealt with officially."
The expulsion of a Diet member is subject to review by the Diet Ethics Special Committee, a resolution of the plenary session, and the approval of more than two-thirds of the Diet members (200 people).
The last time a member of the National Assembly was expelled from the Constitutional History was on October 4, 1979, when Kim Young-sam was expelled from the National Assembly for criticizing the Park Chung-hee administration in an interview with a foreign newspaper.
(Kim Young-sam) was the only person who was the president of the New Democratic Party at the time.