The prosecutor’s office will present arguments in Yoon’s case in the Court on Friday. The acting president might be impeached by the opposition the next day.
SEOUL: South Korea’s Constitutional Court will begin hearing arguments on Friday in the Yoon Suk Yeol case. Parliament suspended him from office on December 3 for his brief martial law declaration.
Table of Contents
Here are issues related to South Korea’s future direction.
What next?
Enduring impeachment on December 14, Yoon can stay in the workplace and the vast majority of his presidential powers are still preserved, among outputs he actually is immune to actual charges like an insurrection or treason. The acting president is Yoon-appointed Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.
One might recall that Han is up for an impeachment vote by the country’s opposition party on Friday also.
The Constitutional Courrt which will have to deal with this case has 180 days to either sack President Yoon or reject impeachment and reinstate him. Should the court discharge Yoon or he resign from his position, the elections for the presidency should be conducted within 60 days.
The court is scheduled to hold a first preparatory hearing on Friday.
Currently, the immediate leader of the campaign to remove Yoon is Opposition Democratic Party lawmaker Jung Chung-rae who is the head of parliament’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee.
Yoon’s legal representative has yet to be disclosed, and there are speculations that he hires a former prosecutor or represents himself.
Some new hires of Samsung and key figures of Yoon’s presidency are Kim Jong-il, a former prosecutor, former head of the broadcasting regulator under Yoon, and the former Constitutional Courrt spokesperson Bae Bo-yoon, according to reports by local media.
Impediments to a court ruling?
For impeachment in the republic of South Korea, requires six justices for the impeachment of a president who has been impeached. The constitutional courrt has nine members and three of them are currently vacant, thus current justices are to vote unanimously to remove Yoon.
The Constitutional Courrt has explained that it can deliberate and sit to hear matters with as few as six of the Justices.
The three vacancies are provided for parliament to create. The main opposition Democratic Party, which has a majority of the parliamentarians, is keen to occupy the vacancies.
Parliament conducted a hearing for two possible candidates on Monday that the ruling People Power Party did not attend due to their claim that acting president Han cannot appoint justices to the Constitutional Courrt.
Yes, there is since during the impeachment of then-President Park Geun-hye in 2016-2017 the acting President appointed a Constitutional Courrt justice.
What happens in court?
South Korea’s only other presidential impeachment was in 2017 and it took the court three months to remove Park from office.
This time, two court justices’ terms end in April, and legal specialists assume the courrt may try to decide before that to avoid uncertainty.
Previously, according to scholars, the members of the Constitutional Courrt do not vote along party affiliation; but they vote depending on their understanding of the Constitution for each case.
Since conservatives can mobilize people to support Yoon to counter Park`s impeachment, including waging civil unrest to keep Park in office despite candlelight protests to impeach her, the ruling will not be influenced by the conservative protests to support Yoon.
In the case of Park, who like Yoon belongs to the center-right party, the court all of the members in the court voted to oust Park including some conservative justices and two of Park’s nominees.
Yoon also has legal cases about martial law decisions in the country on his line.
If indicted, he could seek deferment of the Constitutional Courrt on the impeachment ruling to stop 180 days. The court also dismissed a similar request in Park’s case.
In 2004, the then president Roh Moo-hyun of the center-left party, was impeached on the ground of not upholding the political neutrality that a high public officer is expected to uphold.
Despite this, the court threw out the motion after about two months, and Roh completed his five-year term.