Gwangju Gwangsan-gu Mayor Candidate Park Si-jong's 'Disqualification' Appeal Filed

Issues Raised on Retroactive Application of Evaluation Criteria, Scope of Temporal Application, and Fairness

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Yoon Jamin] Park Si-jong, a prospective candidate for the Gwangsan District Office in Gwangju Metropolitan City from the Democratic Party of Korea, who was judged as "ineligible without exception" due to a prior drunk driving record, has filed an objection with the central party.

It is known that Candidate Park submitted the objection letter to the Preliminary Candidate Qualification Review Objection Processing Committee at around 1:30 PM on the 3rd after thorough legal review.

He stated, "I met the qualification criteria for preliminary candidates set by the Gwangju City Party, went through the proper procedures for preliminary registration with the election commission, and began full-scale election campaigning. The opening ceremony was organized with a mammoth-scale attendance, and I have continued noticeable and active activities since then. However, despite participating in two primary elections in the last general election, I am now facing the risk of disqualification due to the Democratic Party’s emergency committee’s inconsistent application of some verification standards retroactively," he claimed.

The reasons for the objection included "the issue of retroactive application of the ineligible screening criteria without exception," "the scope of temporal application of the ineligible screening criteria without exception," "issues of fairness," "violation of the right to be elected," and "violation of the principle of proportionality."

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party’s Gwangju City Party had set the "ineligible judgment" criteria only for those whose licenses were "revoked" due to drunk driving after the enforcement of the Yoon Chang-ho Act on December 18, 2018. However, the central party’s emergency committee decided to strictly apply the standard to "offenders," resulting in Candidate Park being judged ineligible.