South Korea’s Constitutional Court removes President Yoon from office

South Korea’s Constitutional Court has unanimously voted to remove President Yoon Suk-yeol over his declaration of martial law late last year.

As he read the verdict in court on Friday morning, acting Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae dismissed each of Yoon’s reasons for declaring martial law and said the president had overstepped his authority by deploying troops on the streets of the capital in December.

The defendant mobilised military and police forces to dismantle the authority of constitutional institutions and infringed upon the fundamental rights of the people. In doing so, he abandoned his constitutional duty to uphold the Constitution and gravely betrayed the trust of the Korean people,” Moon said.

“Such unlawful and unconstitutional conduct constitutes an act that cannot be tolerated under the Constitution,” the justice continued.

“The negative consequences and ripple effects of these actions are substantial, and the benefit of restoring constitutional order through removal from office outweighs the national costs associated with the dismissal of a sitting president,” he said.

Yoon briefly declared martial law late on the evening of December 3, claiming that antistate and North Korean forces had infiltrated the government.

But senior military and police officials who were sent to shut down the country’s National Assembly have testified that Yoon ordered them to detain rival politicians and prevent the assembly from voting to lift his military rule order.

South Korea’s National Assembly voted to impeach Yoon on December 14, but they needed the approval of the Constitutional Court to formally expel him.

The government now has 60 days to hold a presidential election. Acting President Han Duck-soo will remain in his position until then.

Outside the courthouse, the verdict was met with cheers by critics of Yoon. The pro-Yoon crowd of mostly older protesters, by contrast, was relatively quiet, with a few grumbles of “rigged election” and “corruption” rippling through the crowd.

The case has been a political lightning rod in South Korea, which has seen protests both for and against Yoon in the weeks since he was impeached.

The Constitutional Court allotted 20 seats for the public to observe the trial proceedings, but a staggering 96,370 people applied for the slots.