On February 25, South Korea’s Constitutional Court wrapped up the impeachment trial of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. Yoon’s martial law declaration on December 3 was the catalyst for the opposition to impeach him, and it took only 11 days for the National Assembly to pass a bill to that effect. Yoon has been suspended from his duties since the parliamentary vote on December 14, but remains in office as the Constitutional Court considers whether to uphold or overturn impeachment.
Many experts anticipated that the Constitutional Court would issue its ruling on Yoon by March 14, since in previous presidential impeachment cases the verdict was issued within two weeks after the court closed the trials. However, the court has still not announced the date for its ruling, resulting in different sentiments among the public.
Many analyses – both from those who favor impeaching Yoon and those who oppose it – have sought to explain the Constitutional Court’s delay in recent days. The most compelling analysis is that the eight justices have already reached a verdict on whether to remove Yoon from office permanently, considering the severity of constitutional violation Yoon committed. However, Yoon’s lawyers had repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of both the process and the impeachment case itself to pressure the court to dismiss the case. With that in mind, the justices may be spending more time in drafting the sentencing in order to prevent any party from rejecting its verdict.
Under the constitution, at least six justices must uphold the impeachment to remove Yoon from office permanently. In this context, some have speculated that the delay stems from the justices’ efforts to reach a verdict with unanimous opinion. The country is extremely divided, and certain justices are perceived as either pro- or anti-Yoon. The court may be seeking a unanimous ruling to integrate the riven country. In the impeachment trial of Park Geun-hye in 2017, eight justices unanimously upheld her impeachment.
With the country deeply polarized – and Yoon himself stoking divisions by echoing extremist talking points and riling up his supporters to the point of violence – the political parties and public are viewing the delay of the Constitutional Court’s verdict on Yoon differently.
The ruling People Power Party (PPP) expressed optimistic views on the delay. Pro-Yoon lawmakers within the PPP have tried to use the delay as evidence that the court will dismiss Yoon’s impeachment case because the whole investigation into Yoon was supposedly illegal. The PPP is telling the public to expect Yoon to be restored to office.
Echoing Yoon’s justification of his illegitimate declaration of martial law, the PPP has blamed the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) for its ceaseless attempts to impeach Yoon’s Cabinet members as the main reason for Yoon’s martial law. Recently, the Constitutional Court rejected all impeachment cases of the Cabinet members who were impeached by the National Assembly controlled by the DP. The PPP seized on this ruling to bolster its case, saying Yoon’s hands were tied by an opposition party that overstepped its constitutional power against the Yoon administration.
The PPP has also asked the Constitutional Court to make a ruling on Prime Minister-turned-Acting President Han Duck-soo, who was also impeached by the National Assembly on December 27 for his decision not to appoint justices to the Constitutional Court, before ruling in Yoon’s impeachment case. The DP impeached Han with a simple majority vote; the PPP argued that because he was the acting president at the time, the threshold for impeachment should have been a two-thirds supermajority.
Pro-Yoon supporters and far-right extremists have also argued that the Constitutional Court will dismiss the impeachment case against Yoon after the Seoul Central District Court accepted the claims of Yoon’s defense lawyers that the investigation team moved to prosecute Yoon after the deadline of his detention period had lapsed. Yoon was released on March 8 and returned to his presidential residence as the prosecution decided not to appeal the ruling.
Yoon would not have been released if the prosecution appealed the ruling, but it decided not to do so. This decision aggravated distrust over the prosecution. Many people have accused the prosecution of being politically biased in favor of Yoon, himself a former prosecutor general. South Korea’s prosecution has taken markedly different approaches to investigating corruption allegations against Yoon’s wife and Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the DP who was the contender against Yoon in the 2022 presidential election, and other opposition political figures. Given that context, there are concerns that prosecutors will not thoroughly investigate Yoon and people close to him.
For the DP, time is clearly not on its side. The opposition has urged the Constitutional Court to make a verdict on Yoon as quickly as possible, saying that the people calling for the court to impeach Yoon are getting exhausted as they have been protesting on the streets for more than three months. Many experts already predicted the eight justices in the Constitutional Court will unanimously uphold the impeachment of Yoon like the court did against Park in 2017. In this context, they expected the court would issue its verdict before March 14.
However, as the Constitutional Court has not even announced the date for its ruling in the case, those who support the impeachment of Yoon are getting nervous over the possibility of the court rejecting the case and Yoon returning to office.
Whether Yoon is finally impeached or restored to office, South Korea will likely be facing turmoil. The country has become deeply divided, with each side accusing the other of destroying the very democratic system South Koreans fought so hard to establish.
Under the constitution, the Constitutional Court has until June to decide on whether to uphold the impeachment of Yoon. However, as it already closed the trial, it was anticipated to make a verdict last week. Instead, the court has been delaying what would be the most important decision in South Korea’s history without offering any updates. As the court has not even revealed the reason for the postponement, the country has been divided even further, showing two extremely different interpretations of the events.
The worst part is that Yoon has not publicly agreed to accept the ruling of the Constitutional Court, and there have been polls showing segments of the public will not respect the court’s verdict should it come out differently than they expect.
South Korea’s economy is crumbling while its diplomacy is dysfunctional due to the ongoing uncertainty over the country’s leadership. As the country’s democratic system is in peril of being damaged by far-right extremists who do not hesitate to use violence against civilians who have different opinions, the Constitutional Court should decide on whether to impeach Yoon as quickly as possible.
