With South Korea in crisis, eight judges will decide the fate of the president

For six weeks, South Korea has endured its worst political crisis in decades, calling into question the resilience of the country’s democracy. The most important step toward a resolution will be taken on Tuesday, when the Constitutional Court begins deliberating whether to remove or reinstate the country’s impeached president.

The court’s eight judges will be the final arbiters of the fate of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached and suspended from office on Dec. 14 by the National Assembly for his brief declaration of martial law 11 days earlier.

There is a lot at stake. Rival groups of citizens have demonstrated for weeks, some in front of the court, calling for Mr. Yoon’s ouster or demanding his return to office. Hardliners on both sides have warned of a “civil war” if the court does not rule in their favor.

If Yoon is removed, it will be another crushing blow to the country’s conservative camp: he will be the third consecutive conservative president to be ousted, imprisoned or both before or after his term ends here.

But if the deeply unpopular leader is allowed to return to office, it could set a precedent for future leaders to use martial law as a political tool, said Ha Sang-eung, a political science professor at Sogang University in Seoul.

“I wonder what other democracies around the world would think if this happened in South Korea,” Ha said.

Yoon has vowed to succeed at the Constitutional Court. But his lawyers have said he will not attend the first hearing on Tuesday, citing fears that criminal investigators will try to detain him for questioning on insurrection charges if he leaves his fortified residence in central Seoul. His absence is expected to shorten Tuesday’s hearing. But the court can continue its deliberations from the second hearing, set for Thursday, with or without him.

“President Yoon will defend himself in court as many times as necessary,” said his lawyer, Yoon Kab-keun.

Mr. Yoon’s martial law lasted just six hours after being rejected by lawmakers in the opposition-led National Assembly. But his attempt to place South Korea under military rule for the first time in four decades has sparked prolonged political uncertainty in a key U.S. ally, which has expressed concern about Yoon’s move.

As Yoon faces a parallel criminal investigation into insurrection charges, the focus on resolving his presidency now shifts to the Constitutional Court: His decision could help dispel some of that uncertainty, or it could increase unrest if his decision angers the public. .

As the country’s political polarization has deepened in recent years, the court has handled a growing number of cases that only it can resolve: officials, prosecutors and judges indicted by the National Assembly. Yoon is the third South Korean president in the last two decades to be impeached.

In 2004, President Roh Moo-hyun was impeached by the National Assembly for violating electoral law, but the court reinstated him, ruling that his crime was not serious enough. In 2017, the court removed Park Geun-hye, another impeached president, for corruption and abuse of power.

“When the country is adrift without a captain or without knowing who it is, the Constitutional Court puts it back on track,” said Jung Ji Ung, a lawyer and president of a bar association in Gyeonggi, the populous province surrounding Seoul.

South Korea has an independent Supreme Court, but created the Constitutional Court in 1987 as the ultimate interpreter of its Constitution. Located in Seoul’s quiet old town, the court has often attracted rival activists holding banners and loudspeakers as historic verdicts approached.

In 2005, it abolished a centuries-old practice that allowed children to adopt only their father’s surname. In 2009, he voted against a ban on nighttime protest rallies, allowing citizens to gather after hours to voice their grievances, as they have done in recent months for and against Mr. Yoon. In 2015, the court decriminalized adultery. In 2019, it repealed a 66-year-old law that made abortion a crime punishable by up to two years in prison.

As the number of impeachment cases grows, the court has become more politically important, as have its nine justices, each of whom serves a six-year term. Three are chosen by the president, three by the president of the Supreme Court and three by the political parties.

The current court has eight justices and one vacancy. Two were selected by Mr. Yoon and his group; three by the former and current chief justices of the Supreme Court; and three from Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, and his Democratic Party, the current opposition. click here

Yoon can be removed from office if six or more justices agree that he should be removed, but he may not be able to rely on the court’s partisanship to save him. In the past, justices did not always vote based on who supported their appointments: the court unanimously ruled to remove Ms. Park, even though some of them had been appointed by her or her party.

The court’s ruling will depend on the seriousness of any constitutional and legal offenses Yoon is found to have committed, said Bang Seung-Ju, a professor at Hanyang University School of Law in Seoul. It will also weigh whether a decision not to expel him would represent a greater disadvantage to the constitutional order and the national interest than his removal, for example by increasing political instability, he said.

The court’s prosecutors are appointed by the National Assembly and say Mr. Yoon committed an insurrection when he sent armed troops to the Assembly, ordering them to take over parliament and arrest his political enemies. Since taking office in 2022, Yoon has been embroiled in a standoff with the National Assembly, which he called “a den of criminals” in justifying his martial law decree.

Yoon also violated the Constitution by banning all political activities and placing the media under military control, prosecutors say.

State prosecutors have already arrested a former defense minister and several military generals accused of helping Mr. Yoon commit an insurrection. Yoon ordered the generals to break down the doors of the National Assembly, “shooting if necessary,” and “drag away” lawmakers, prosecutors said.

Yoon Kab-keun, the president’s lawyer, called those testimonies “corrupt.”

But legal analysts, including Noh Hee-bum, a former investigative judge at the Constitutional Court, expect the court to remove Mr. Yoon as early as February, to help ease the country’s political uncertainty and because there is enough evidence against him.

“It’s a matter of time,” Noh said.