Clash over 'Exclusion of Lee Jin-sook' Disrupts Parliamentary Audit of Science and Broadcasting Committee

[Anchor]

Yesterday's (October 16) parliamentary audit by the National Assembly's Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee was disrupted over the issue of "excluding People Power Party Lawmaker Lee Jin-sook." The Democratic Party argued that it constitutes a conflict of interest for Lawmaker Lee, who served as chair of the Korea Communications Commission under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, to inspect public broadcasters, while the People Power Party countered that this infringes upon a lawmaker's right to question.

Kim Bo-mi reports.

[Reporter]

The National Assembly's Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee convened for a parliamentary audit targeting KBS and MBC's majority shareholder, the Foundation for Broadcast Culture, among others.

From the very beginning, the audit was disrupted over the issue of People Power Party Lawmaker Lee Jin-sook's participation in the inspection.

[Lee Ju-hee / Democratic Party Lawmaker: We need to inspect right now whether those hasty decisions (under the KCC's two-member system), which the courts have repeatedly ruled illegal, brought down public broadcasting, but the very person who made those decisions is....]

[Lee Jin-sook / People Power Party Lawmaker: It was the Democratic Party-led National Assembly that created the two-member system.]

On October 12, the Democratic Party passed a motion to exclude Lawmaker Lee from the parliamentary audit, arguing that it constitutes a conflict of interest for the lawmaker, who served as chair of the Korea Communications Commission under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, to participate in audits on broadcasting issues concerning public broadcasters.

Their argument is that it is unfair for Lawmaker Lee, who was involved in appointing board members of public broadcasters under the highly controversial "two-member KCC system," to conduct a "self-audit" on related matters during this parliamentary inspection.

[Song Ki-hun / Chair of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee (Yesterday): Unless other circumstances arise, I will not grant speaking time to Lawmaker Lee Jin-sook today.]

[Lee Jin-sook / People Power Party Lawmaker (Yesterday): I once again say that this is "tyranny of the majority, abuse of majority power, and majority dictatorship."]

The People Power Party defended Lawmaker Lee, claiming that the Democratic Party is making arbitrary judgments regarding conflicts of interest.

[Choi Hyung-du / People Power Party Lawmaker: Even if the majority party passed such a resolution, there is no way to prevent Committee Member Lee Jin-sook from participating in this meeting. Nor should she be blocked.]

The controversy over the "exclusion of Lawmaker Lee Jin-sook from the parliamentary audit" is expected to reignite during the comprehensive audit of the Broadcasting and Media Communications Commission on October 22.

(Video by Lee Seung-hwan and Shin Dong-hwan | Video Editing by Lee Seung-jin)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.