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Constitutional Court to issue ruling on President Yoon's impeachment on Friday

Published: 01 Apr. 2025, 10:48 Updated: 01 Apr. 2025, 11:52

MICHAEL LEE
[email protected]

Supporters of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol hold up Korean flags and demand his reinstatement across the street from the Constitutional Court in Jongno District, central Seoul, on March 18. [NEWS1]

The Constitutional Court announced Tuesday that it will deliver its long-awaited decision on President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment at 11 a.m. on Friday, April 4, over a hundred days since he was suspended from office.

The announcement, which was announced through a press release, also said that television and media crews will be allowed to broadcast the ruling live.

Yoon was impeached by the National Assembly on Dec. 14 for his brief attempt to impose martial law 11 days earlier.

His suspension is the longest for a Korean president.

The court’s judgment in Yoon’s case is due 38 days after the final hearing of his trial on Feb. 25 and 111 days after the National Assembly formally submitted its impeachment motion to the Constitutional Court. The court’s eight justices held deliberations on Yoon’s case almost daily since his trial concluded.

By contrast, the court’s decision to reinstate former President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 came just 14 days after the conclusion of his trial and 63 days after his impeachment.

The court’s decision to remove former President Park Geun-hye from office in 2017 was delivered only 11 days after her trial ended and 91 days after the Assembly suspended her.

As such, Yoon’s verdict date is well past the mid-March timeframe that most observers had expected.

One possible factor in the lag between the last hearing and the upcoming verdict is the sheer amount of evidence submitted during Yoon’s seven-week trial, which saw 16 witnesses testify over 11 hearings.

Unlike in Park’s trial, witnesses who testified during Yoon’s impeachment proceedings contradicted each other on several significant aspects of his martial law decree, such as whether he ordered the arrest of high-profile politicians or commanded special forces to drag lawmakers out from the National Assembly.

The trial concluded without resolving these discrepancies, leaving it up to justices to weigh the validity of conflicting claims.

Their upcoming ruling is also likely to address whether Yoon’s actions were intentional violations of the Korean constitutional order, as the court previously established that a president’s motives should be taken into account when determining whether their actions warrant removal from office.

In Roh’s case, the court ruled that his open support for the liberal Uri Party did not constitute a deliberate violation of his constitutional duty to remain impartial.

By contrast, Park was removed from office after the justices found sufficient evidence that she had betrayed public trust and undermined the rule of law through corruption and abuse of power.

During Yoon’s trial, the Assembly’s legal team accused him of violating the constitutional order by unlawfully suspending all political and parliamentary activities, as well as ordering martial law forces to enforce his decree.

Yoon, however, claimed he intended his declaration of martial law to serve as a warning to the Korean public about the dangers posed by what he described as “antistate forces” that he blamed for the country’s political gridlock. He also claimed that external actors had interfered in the 2024 general election, which the Democratic Party won by a landslide.

For the court to remove Yoon from office, at least six justices must vote in favor of the impeachment motion against him.

The court’s decision cannot be appealed.

BY MICHAEL LEE [[email protected]]