Parliamentary committee votes overwhelmingly to unseat lawmaker accused of sexist remarks

SEOUL, May 30 (Yonhap) -- A special parliamentary ethics committee voted overwhelmingly Monday to unseat a lawmaker accused of sexist and derogatory remarks about female TV announcers, paving the way for him to become South Korea's first-ever national legislator to get the axe for ethics problems. The committee approved the motion calling for ousting Rep. Kang Yong-seok from the National Assembly in an 11-0 vote with one vote ruled invalid. Should it pass through a plenary session with two-thirds approval, it will make him the country's first-ever lawmaker to be unseated over an ethics issue. The result reflects how seriously both the ruling and opposition parties consider the case. The decision was yet another blow to Kang, 42, a lawyer-turned-lawmaker whose reputation has gone into free fall since revelations last July that he allegedly told a group of college students that the job of female announcers involves unwanted sexual relationships. Kang was immediately kicked out of the ruling Grand National Party, and he has since struggled in a criminal lawsuit on defamation charges filed by a group of female announcers. Last week, he was found guilty of the charges and handed a suspended prison term. Should the verdict be upheld at the Supreme Court, Kang will lose his parliamentary seat. Under South Korean law, a legislator is stripped of parliamentary membership when he or she is sentenced to a jail term for criminal charges. Former President Kim Young-sam has been the only case of a national legislator getting ousted from parliament in South Korean history. In 1979, the then opposition leader Kim was unseated from the National Assembly as part of political oppression by the then authoritarian government.