On April 22, 2024, then-President Yoon Suk-yeol leaves the podium after announcing his new chief of staff from the presidential office in Yongsan. (pool photo)
By a unanimous decision, Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yeol.
“The respondent, President Yoon Suk-yeol, is removed from office,” the court said in its decision on Yoon’s impeachment at 11 am Friday. The court made its ruling 123 days after Yoon’s ill-fated declaration of martial law on Dec. 3.
The court concluded that Yoon had broken the law by having police officers and soldiers break into the National Assembly on the evening of the martial law declaration, attempting to seize servers at the National Election Commission, and tracking the location of a number of jurists and politicians. In addition, the court said, the martial law declaration had not met the necessary conditions, which meant that issuing the martial law decree had itself been illegal.
“By banning the activities of the National Assembly, regional assemblies and political parties in the [martial law] decree, the respondent violated constitutional provisions authorizing the political party system and empowering the National Assembly to demand that martial law be lifted, as well as the principles of representational democracy and the separation of powers,” the court said.
The court said that Yoon’s actions represented “a violation of the warrant requirement and provisions in the Constitution and the Martial Law Act that describe the requirements for restricting fundamental rights through martial law.” The result, the court said, was the infringement of “the people’s fundamental political rights, their right to collective action and the freedom of occupation.”
The court also addressed Yoon’s defense of his martial law declaration as a response to the opposition-controlled National Assembly’s impeachment of multiple public officials and its budget slashing, which he said had paralyzed the government.
“The National Assembly’s exercise of its authority to pass impeachment bills, enact legislation and review budget bills cannot be regarded as having effectively produced a grave crisis at the time that martial law was declared. Even if the National Assembly’s exercise of its authority was improper and illegal, that could have been dealt with through the exercise of ordinary authority, such as the Constitutional Court’s impeachment review and the president’s veto of bills. As such, the exercise of the state’s emergency powers cannot be justified,” the court said.
The Constitutional Court further said that the issues of a government deadlock caused by the National Assembly’s use of its authority and the suspicions of rigged elections cited by Yoon as reasons for his declaration of martial law were “problems to be solved through political, institutional, and judicial means, not problems that can be solved by mobilizing troops.”
Regarding Yoon’s claim that martial law was cautionary in nature and was meant as an appeal to the public, the court dismissed this line of reasoning, saying it was not in line with the purpose of declaring martial law outlined in the Martial Law Act.
Yoon argued that troops and police were deployed to the National Assembly to maintain order, but the Constitutional Court determined that such actions had the objective of preventing lawmakers from convening.
“By deploying soldiers and police to restrict lawmakers’ access to the National Assembly and ordered for people to be dragged out, the respondent [Yoon] obstructed the exercise of authority by the National Assembly, thereby violating the constitutional provision granting the National Assembly the authority to request the rescinding of martial law, as well as violated lawmakers’ right to convene and vote and their special privilege that exempts them from arrest,” the court added.
Regarding the clashes between citizens and the troops deployed to the National Assembly, the court said, “In this incident, the respondent violated the principle of political neutrality when it comes to the armed forces. He also violated his constitutional duty as their commander in chief.”
Regarding his orders to Hong Jang-won, the first deputy chief of the National Intelligence Service, to have politicians arrested, the court determined that Yoon, at the very least, set out to track their locations. In attempting to track the locations of the leaders of various political parties, Yoon had “infringed on the freedom of activities of political parties,” the court found.
The attempt to track the location of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su was also viewed as an infringement on the independence of the judicial branch.
Regarding the argument that martial law was declared in order to seek answers on suspicions of election fraud, the court declared that the conditions for declaring martial law as dictated by the Constitution include wartime, national disaster or other tantamount emergencies, and that such suspicions did not meet the necessary conditions. The court added that the attempt to raid the National Election Commission was also an infringement of the institution’s independence.
Regarding the five-minute Cabinet meeting Yoon convened before declaring martial law, the court determined that it failed to meet the legal procedural conditions for declaring martial law.
Considering that the respondent failed to properly explain details regarding the martial law command and other specifics of the declaration of martial law in question and did not give Cabinet members a chance to fully express their opinions, the court found, it is difficult to say that the proper deliberations were conducted ahead of the martial law declaration.
“The defendant did not gain the signatures of the prime minister or other related Cabinet members in his martial law declaration, yet he still went ahead with the declaration. He did not reveal the time it would go into effect, where it would go into effect, and who the martial law commander would be. He also did not report it to the National Assembly without delay, and therefore violated the procedural conditions set out in the Constitution and the Martial Law Act,” the court declared.
The court found that these actions constituted grave violations of the country’s laws and Constitution that merited Yoon’s removal from office.
“These actions violated foundational principles of the rule of law and the democratic state, and in doing so infringed upon the constitutional order, thereby seriously impairing the stability of our democratic republic,” the court continued.
“The National Assembly was able to swiftly rescind martial law because of civic resistance and the military and the police carrying out their duties in a passive way. This does not change the gravity of the violations of law committed by the respondent,” the court noted.
“The president’s authority is granted by, and therefore limited by, the Constitution. The respondent stepped outside the constitutional limits of that authority regarding national emergencies, an area where the president should exercise the most discretion when exercising his or her authority, thereby arousing public distrust in presidential authority,” the court continued.
The court went on to say that the conflict between the respondent and the National Assembly could not be attributed to either party individually.
“As a political matter, it ought to have been resolved according to the principles of democracy. The expression of political views and public decision-making must be concordant with the laws of democracy guaranteed by the Constitution,” the court found.
“The National Assembly should have respected the opinions of the minority and, with tolerance and restraint, striven to reach a conclusion with its relationship with the government through dialogue and compromise. The respondent should have respected the National Assembly as the body that represents the people. Nevertheless, the respondent chose to target the National Assembly for exclusion, which violates the premise of democratic politics and cannot be seen as being accordant with democracy,” the court went on.
“The respondent violated the Constitution and laws when declaring martial law, harkening back to instances in South Korean history when the president’s authority in times of national emergencies were abused, leaving the South Korean people stunned and plunging the country’s society, economy, politics and foreign affairs policies into chaos,” the Constitutional Court stated.
Justice Moon Hyung-bae, the acting president of the Constitutional Court, reads the court’s decision removing Yoon Suk-yeol from office as president on April 4, 2024. (pool photo)
The court further explained, “By mobilizing the military and police to damage the authority of constitutional institutions such as the National Assembly and infringing on the fundamental human rights of the people, the respondent deserted his duty to protect the Constitution and trampled on the trust of the people, who are the sovereigns of this democratic republic. As the respondent’s transgression of the Constitution and law is a direct betrayal of the people’s trust, this constitutes a grave violation of law that is not permissible from the standpoint of protecting the Constitution.”
The Constitutional Court did not concede to the arguments made by Yoon’s team concerning procedural issues. In response to the National Assembly’s request to present violations of criminal law, including attempted insurrection, as constitutional offenses in Yoon’s impeachment bill, the court stated, “Withdrawing or changing relevant legal provisions within a petition while retaining basic facts does not constitute withdrawal or change the grounds for impeachment, so the action does not require any special procedures.”
The court also rejected claims that the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee failed to conduct sufficient research on the impeachment motion or that it violated a National Assembly Act principle by repeatedly introducing the same agenda item in one session.
With respect to whether the prosecutors’ written records of investigations could be used as evidence in Yoon’s impeachment case, Justices Kim Hyung-du and Lee Mi-son issued a concurring opinion finding that the hearsay rule of the Criminal Procedure Act could be applied loosely, while Justices Kim Bok-hyeong and Cho Han-chang provided concurring opinions to state that the rule could be applied more strictly in future cases.
Regarding the argument that the martial law invocation was a political question and thus not subject to the jurisdiction of the court, the Constitutional Court stated, “Taking into consideration how the impeachment trial took place to protect the constitutional order from a high-ranking official violating the Constitution and the country’s laws, even if the declaration itself was a highly political decision, the court still maintains the authority to examine any violations of the Constitution and laws.”
Justice Moon Hyung-bae, the Constitutional Court’s acting president, read the pronouncement aloud, coming to around 22 minutes in total. Yoon was officially removed from office at 11:22 am, when Moon read the pronouncement’s holding that upheld Yoon’s impeachment.
By Oh Yeon-seo, staff reporter; Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter; Jang Hyeon-eun, staff reporter
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
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