Seoul – The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, whose declaration of martial law in December involved the special forces that assault the National Assembly Commission and the National Electoral Commission, was officially withdrawn from the position on Friday after the Constitutional Court of the country voted to defend the motion of dismissal approved by legislators at the end of last year.
The court verdict, by a vote of 8 to 0, means that South Korea will hold an election to choose a new president within 60 days. Separately, Yoon, 64, will also be tried for charges of criminal insurrection.
When reading the Court ruling, the president of the Supreme Court in interim, Hyung-Bae, said that Yoon had challenged the constitutional order and “violated the basic rights of the South Koreans,” and added that it was only the “resistance of citizenship and the passive operational conduct of the police and the soldiers” that allowed the legislators to cancel the declaration of martial laws with a vote.
Yoon, who was halfway in a single period of five years, is the second South Korean president to be accused. Park Geun-Hye, another conservative, was removed from the office in 2017 after a corruption scandal.
The decision of the court marks the end of what has been a turbulent presidency.
Yoon was chosen in 2022, surpassing his liberal opponent, Lee Jae-Myung, for only 0.73 of a percentage point, or 247,077 votes, beginning their term in what many saw as a weak public mandate.
The supporters of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol Rally in Seoul on December 7, 2024.
(Lee Jin-Man / Associated Press)
Although Yoon was well received by the Biden Administration for taking South Korea to a three -way military pact with Japan, aligning it with the broader impulse of the United States to restrict China's ambitions in the region, its history of scandals, diplomatic gaps and flashes of authoritarian governance made it deeply unpopular at home.
During his mandate, Yoon and his allies were criticized for trying to make media snacks and journalists of adverse media, as well as a cartoon competition funded by the government that awarded his main prize to a work that ridden Yoon.
As part of his Marcial legal order, Yoon prohibited all political activity and placed the media under military control.
His wife, Kim Keon-Hee, was followed by innumerable controversies of his account, including the revelations that he plagued the thesis of his mastery.
Yoon remained challenging in his trial of political trial, claiming that his political enemies framed him for the insurrection, and that his declaration of martial law was a public care supplication.
Since December, he tried to justify his martial law statement with accusations that the members of the Liberal Opposition Party, which has 192 of the 300 seats of the Legislature, were north Korea supporters who used their “legislative tyranny” to paralyze their government. It was an echo of anti -communist rhetoric that previous military dictators and subsequent conservative leaders have frequently invoked against South Korean liberals, which for a long time have been defined for their support for reconciliation with Pyongyang.
In defending his decision to deploy troops in the Electoral Commission, Yoon has cited a widely discredited conspiracy theory that last year's general elections, which resulted in his conservative power party that suffered an overwhelming defeat by the liberals, was compromised by electoral fraud.
“The declaration of martial emergency law on December 3 was intended to announce that the country is currently facing an existential crisis, and desperately appealing to the public so that they find out about this situation and provide their support by overcoming it,” Yoon told the Constitutional Court at the beginning of March.
But in their testimonies before the Court and prosecutors, many of the military and government officials once under the command of Yoon contradicted their version of the events, remembering the orders to arrest Yoon's political opponents, and prevent the National Assembly from exercising its constitutional right guaranteed to lift the Martial Law with a vote, as it did hours after the statement of the President.
The protesters encouraged a court in South Korea issued an order of January 19, 2025, for the arrest of President Yoon.
(Ahn Young-Joon / Associated Press)
Lieutenant General Lee Jin-Woo, head of the Capital Defense Command, one of the military units mobilized during martial law, told the researchers that Yoon called him that night and said: “
The Commander of the Special Forces of the Army, Lieutenant General Kwak Jong-Kun, also testified that Yoon told him to eliminate the legislators of the National Assembly before they could vote to revoke the declaration of the martial law.
Both generals have also been accused of insurrection charges.
Yoon, a former prosecutor, chose to defend himself in court, a measure that many consider a monumental error.
“He made so many mistakes during his defense and essentially exposed his own lack of knowledge of the Constitution,” said Chab-Je, a conservative expert. “It was a total comedy.”
Cho said Yoon acknowledged sending troops to occupy the country's electoral commission, an independent constitutional institution that is not under the scope of martial law.
“It was basically a confession,” he said.
The trial has also caused concerns that South Korea is seeing the resurgence of an extreme authoritarian right.
Despite the generalized public fury in the declaration of Yoon's martial law, his party has defended him, with some conservative legislators who ask for the “destruction” of the Constitutional Court.
Opposition legislators have accused Yoon of inciting their most extreme followers to violence, after a mafia for year assaulted and disfigured the court that issued their arrest warrant in January.
“Yoon's party needs to cut the ties with him, but they can't because they are aware of their followers,” said Cho. “Calculate that a third of people still believe in the theory of the conspiracy of electoral fraud.”
The expulsion of Yoon will probably lead to a new rethinking of the South Korean political system, which has seen four of its eight imprisoned presidents or accused since the nation became democracy in 1987 after decades of authoritarian government.
Many have argued that the president exercises too much power under the current constitution and that greater controls and balances are needed.
“The fact that the president after president is accused or imprisoned tells us that we must take advantage of this as an opportunity to begin to discuss how to change the governance structure of South Korea,” said Sang-Eung, a political scientist from the University of Sogang. He pointed out that the Constitution allows legislators to occupy Cabinet positions without giving up their seat in the National Assembly, one of several characteristics that he argues undergoes the controls of the Legislature on the Executive Power.
“The ruling legislators of the party know that they could be called to the cabinet at any time, which means that they try not to conflict with the president,” he said.
“It's not something we can solve by choosing a new president.”
