Anger in South Korea as court rejects removing minister over Halloween crush

South Korea’s constitutional court on Tuesday ruled against a parliamentary vote to impeach the interior minister over the response by the government to a
deadly Halloween crush in the capital Seoul last year that killed more than 150 people.
While the court found minister Lee Sang-min had made remarks that were inappropriate, they did not amount to grounds for impeachment, it said in a statement.
The decision was unanimous, the court said.
“This disastrous incident was not caused and exacerbated by a single cause or person,” Lee Jong-seok, a justice at the court said, adding that each government agency did not have the ability to respond in a united manner to major-scale disasters.
Minister Lee did not attend the court session and only his lawyers were present.