Seoul, Jan 8: Two lawmakers of South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party (DP) lost their parliamentary seats on Thursday after the Supreme Court upheld lower court rulings on election law violations.
The top court confirmed a 7 million-won ($4,800) fine against Representative Yi Byeong-jin on charges of underreporting his assets during the parliamentary elections in April 2024, when he was elected into office.
It also upheld another lower court ruling that sentenced Representative Shin Yeong-dae’s former campaign manager to a suspended prison term on charges of distorting a party opinion poll in the lead-up to the 2024 elections, Yonhap News Agency reported.
By law, a lawmaker is stripped of his or her parliamentary seat if convicted of violating the Public Official Election Act and sentenced to a prison term or a fine of 1 million won or more.
Their election is also invalidated if their campaign manager receives a prison term or a fine of 3 million won or more.
Yi was indicted in October 2024 on charges of failing to report some of his assets during his election campaign, including some 70 million won worth of stocks and a record of having put up land he possessed in the central city of Asan as collateral for loans.
He was also accused of omitting his name when jointly purchasing the land in Asan with an acquaintance in 2018.
The Supreme Court upheld a separate fine of 5 million won against Yi for violating the Act on Real Name Financial Transactions and Confidentiality, which requires the use of real names in financial transactions.
Meanwhile, the top court confirmed a one-year prison term, suspended for two years, and 120 hours of community service for Shin’s former campaign manager, surnamed Kang, stripping the lawmaker of his parliamentary seat.
Prosecutors indicted Kang on charges of giving 15 million won and 100 mobile phones to a former head of a sports association for the disabled in the western city of Gunsan in December 2023 to submit false responses to a DP primary opinion poll.
Investigators found the phones were used to express support for Shin in the opinion poll.
Shin ultimately won a constituency nomination in the primary by a margin of less than 1 percentage point over his rival in March 2024 before going on to win a parliamentary seat in the general elections the next month.
–IANS