Constitutional Court rules to reinstate Prime Minister Han Duck-soo

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Constitutional Court rules to reinstate Prime Minister Han Duck-soo

Published: 24 Mar. 2025, 10:09 Updated: 24 Mar. 2025, 18:04

MICHAEL LEE
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Acting President and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo delivers his first public address after his reinstatement at the government complex in Jongno District, central Seoul, on March 24. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo was reinstated by the Constitutional Court in a divided ruling on Monday, 87 days after the National Assembly passed an impeachment motion against him.

A majority of five of the court’s eight justices voted to dismiss the impeachment motion, determining that the arguments against Han were insufficient to justify his removal from office, while two justices — Cho Han-chang and Cheong Hyung-sik — rejected the motion outright on procedural grounds and declined to weigh in on the accusations.

Only one justice, Chung Kye-sun, supported the impeachment motion.

Monday’s ruling also immediately restored Han to the role of acting president, a position he had assumed on Dec. 14 last year, when President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached over his brief attempt to declare martial law 11 days earlier. Han’s first tenure as acting president lasted less than two weeks before his own suspension.

The Democratic Party (DP), which holds 170 seats in the legislature, passed the impeachment motion against Han with support from other liberal parties on Dec. 27, following his refusal to approve the nominations of Chung, Cho, and Ma Eun-hyuk to the Constitutional Court.

Han cited the lack of bipartisan consensus on the three candidates as his primary reason for not moving forward with their nominations.

The motion also accused Han of acting as Yoon’s “accomplice” and refusing to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the president’s martial law bid. It further alleged that Han had violated the constitutional separation of powers by repeatedly vetoing bills passed by the Assembly and attempting to run the government with former conservative People Power Party (PPP) leader Han Dong-hoon after Yoon’s impeachment.

Though many observers anticipated that Monday’s ruling would address the constitutionality of Yoon’s martial law declaration, the justices notably did not mention this issue. Instead, the court said it found no “objective evidence” that Prime Minister Han played an active role at the Dec. 3 Cabinet meeting, where Yoon informed ministers of his plan to impose martial law.

Han has consistently denied having any prior knowledge of Yoon’s plan. He has also maintained that he attempted to dissuade the president from declaring martial law at the Cabinet meeting.

From left: Justices Moon Hyung-bae, Cho Han-chang, Cheong Hyung-sik and Kim Hyung-du enter the main chamber of the Constitutional Court in Jongno District, central Seoul on March 24. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The main point of disagreement between the justices in Monday’s ruling was whether Han should be impeached over his refusal to approve the Assembly’s nominations for the court’s bench.

Four justices — Moon Hyung-bae, Lee Mi-son, Kim Hyung-du and Chung — reaffirmed an earlier ruling by the court that the president or acting president has a constitutional obligation to appoint parliamentary nominees.

However, Moon, Lee and Kim ruled that Han’s failure to do so was not serious enough to warrant his removal from office. The three justices said they found no evidence to suggest that Han intended to obstruct the court’s operations by withholding approval.

Chung, on the other hand, argued that Han’s refusal to fill the court’s vacancies exacerbated national instability and undermined the country’s constitutional governance.

Meanwhile, Justice Kim Bok-hyeong argued that Han’s refusal to appoint justices was not unconstitutional and that he had the right to thoroughly review their nominations. Kim also noted that Han’s impeachment motion was passed just a day after the Assembly formally nominated Chung, Cho and Ma to the court.

When Han was suspended from office, the nine-member court had only six sitting justices. Three seats, reserved by law for the legislature’s picks, had been vacant since October last year after the terms of the previous justices expired.

As at least six justices need to support Yoon’s impeachment to effect his dismissal, the DP was concerned that a lone dissent could derail their efforts to oust him.

Chung and Cho were later appointed by Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, who served as acting president and acting prime minister during Han’s suspension.

The court also ruled that Han did not violate any existing laws or his duty to remain politically neutral by attempting to establish a joint governing body with the former PPP leader. The justices found that this initiative was aimed at restoring stability in the country following Yoon’s martial law declaration and suspension.

The court’s majority further found that Han had not violated the constitutional separation of powers by exercising the presidential veto against DP-backed bills for special counsel probes, though Chung disagreed.

However, the six justices did find that the impeachment motion against Han was valid by virtue of having received the support of over 150 lawmakers.

They said the two-thirds threshold for impeaching a president, who is directly elected by the people, does not apply to an appointed official acting as the president’s deputy.

In their dissenting opinion, Cho and Cheong contended that the impeachment motion against Han should have been rejected outright. They argued that the impeachment of an acting president should be subject to the two-thirds threshold in order to reduce political instability and curb potential abuses of the legislature’s impeachment power.

The impeachment motion against Han is the 9th to be rejected by the court out of 29 passed by the DP since Yoon took office in May 2022. The court has upheld none of them so far.

However, Han’s reinstatement appears unlikely to quell the ongoing controversy over court appointments.

The DP and other liberal parties submitted a joint motion on Friday to impeach Choi Sang-mok, accusing him of acting unconstitutionally by failing to appoint Ma as the court’s ninth justice.

Acting President and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, right, shakes hands with Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok at a Cabinet meeting held at the government complex in Jongno District, central Seoul, on March 24. [YONHAP]

In his first public comments after his reinstatement, Han thanked the court for its “wise decision” and called for an end to political conflict between Korea’s major parties.

“At this point, there should be no left or right,” Han said to reporters on his way to work at the government complex in central Seoul in the morning. “What truly matters now is that our country develops upward and forward.”

He also expressed gratitude to Choi for filling in as acting president and other Cabinet members for running government ministries in his absence.

However, he declined to answer questions from reporters about whether he would approve Ma’s nomination.

Han is scheduled to convene a meeting of the National Security Council and visit southeastern areas of the country affected by wildfires on Monday.

The DP greeted news of Han’s return with disappointment.

“Although we have no choice but to accept the decision, I wonder if people understand how the court could find that Han violated the Constitution, yet still decide to not dismiss him,” DP leader Rep. Lee Jae-myung said.

Lee also urged the court to immediately announce the date of its yet-unknown ruling on Yoon, whose impeachment process exceeded 100 days in length on Sunday.

Party floor leader Rep. Park Chan-dae said he regards Monday’s ruling with “regret,” but also argued that it highlighted Han’s duty to appoint Ma.

Meanwhile, the PPP seized upon the ruling to call for a public apology from the DP.

PPP floor leader Rep. Kweon Seong-dong said Lee and his party should “kneel and bow in contrition for passing an impeachment motion against Han despite knowing it would be overturned.”

He also called on the DP to abandon its latest push to impeach Choi.

BY MICHAEL LEE [[email protected]]