South Korean constitutional court upholds President Yoon’s impeachment.

South Korea’s constitutional court upheld a motion by the National Assembly to impeach President Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law imposition. Moon Hyung-bae, acting chief of the court, read a ruling on Yoon’s impeachment, saying it was a unanimous decision of eight justices. The acting chief said Yoon broke his duty of protecting the constitution as he damaged the constitutional institutions, such as the parliament, and violated the basic rights of people by mobilising the military and the police.

Moon stressed that the benefit of protecting the constitution post Yoon’s dismissal will overwhelmingly exceed the national loss from his dismissal. By law, the ruling comes into force immediately after the reading and a snap presidential election is required to be held within 60 days. The election is expected to fall in late May – early June this year.

Yoon Suk Yeol’s political rise was fast: the former star prosecutor clinched South Korea’s presidency only a year after he entered politics. But his downfall was even faster: The Constitutional Court ousted him from office on Friday, merely about four months after he made a deeply baffling decision to declare martial law and send troops to Seoul’s streets. Yoon declared an emergency martial law on the night of 03rd. December, 2024, but it was revoked by the opposition-led National Assembly hours later. Throughout the midnight hours of the botched martial law attempt, military helicopters landed at the National Assembly, and hundreds of armed special forces troops broke into the parliamentary building. Yoon’s administrative style was highly assertive and strong-willed, but often uncompromising and inflexible.  working for a prosecutor standing up to higher-ups, but not for a president forced to work with an opposition-dominated legislature on an array of contentious issues.

Yoon rose to stardom in 2013, when he publicly accused his boss of pressuring him to drop a high stakes investigation into allegations that the state intelligence agency had carried out an illegal online campaign to help conservative Park Geun-hye win the previous year’s presidential election. During a hearing at parliament, Yoon famously said, “I’m not loyal to (high-level) people.” He was demoted, but after Park’s government was toppled over a separate corruption scandal in 2017, liberal President Moon Jae-in made Yoon head of a Seoul prosecutors’ office that investigated Park and other conservative leaders. Yoon was later appointed as Moon’s prosecutor general.

Political rookie of the year In 2021, Yoon left the Moon administration and entered politics following disputes over probes of Moon allies. Moon’s supporters accused Yoon of attempting to frustrate Moon’s push to reform the Korean prosecution service and boost his political standing. Yoon, for his part, called the Moon government “corrupt,” “incompetent” and “arrogant.” Yoon joined then the opposition People Power Party, the country’s biggest conservative party, whose leaders were previously investigated, as it was looking to embrace a popular outside figure to lead its fight to regain power in the following year’s presidential election.

Yoon, 64, a conservative, said his martial law decree was a desperate attempt to call on public support for his fight against “anti-state” liberal rivals who used their parliamentary majority to obstruct his agenda and impeach top officials. But many observers say the stunt was political suicide, as the liberal opposition-controlled parliament quickly struck down Yoon’s decree before impeaching him and sending his case to the Constitutional Court. ‘ Yoon was separately indicted by prosecutors for rebellion, an indictment that can carry the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Here’s what needs to be known about Yoon’s life to understand the sudden end of his presidency. A popular prosecutor Before becoming president in 2022, Yoon worked as prosecutor for about 26 years, establishing an image as a strong-minded, uncompromising prosecutor who didn’t yield to pressure from powerful figures. In 2022, in his first national election campaign, Yoon defeated Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae Myung in the country’s most closely fought presidential election.

The election race got nasty, with Yoon describing Lee’s party as “Hitler” and “Mussolini” while an associate called Lee’s purported aides “parasites.” Lee’s allies called Yoon “a beast,” “dictator” and “an empty can” and derided his wife over claims she had had plastic surgery.

What is considered to be a turbulent presidency; On foreign policy, Yoon was credited with working hard to reinforce South Korea’s military alliance with the U.S. and repairing disputes with Japan over historical traumas to build a stronger trilateral security partnership to cope with North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.

In April 2023, Yoon charmed a White House state dinner by singing “American Pie” at the request of then-President Joe Biden. In August 2023, Yoon, Biden and Japan’s then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met at Camp David in their countries’ first stand-alone trilateral summit, where they agreed to bolster defense cooperation. Yoon and Kishida revived stalled high-level talks and withdrew reciprocal economic restrictions imposed under their predecessors. But domestically, Yoon’s time in office was marred by near-constant political strife with Lee’s party, unprecedented even in South Korea’s deeply polarized political world.

With control of the National Assembly, the Democratic Party filed almost 30 impeachment motions against senior officials. None has yet been upheld by the Constitutional Court, except that of Yoon. The Yoon administration vetoed opposition-led bills about 40 times. Eventually, Yoon tried to break through the gridlock by declaring martial law. He says that it was an attempt to appeal for the public’s help to overcome the “wickedness” of the Democratic Party.

Critics say he was simply aiming to use force to impose his will on the legislature. In his martial law announcement, Yoon called the Democratic Party-led assembly “a den of criminals,” “a monster” and anti-state forces.” Democratic Party leaders lambasted Yoon’s martial law, calling him “an alcoholic,” “a madman” and “ringleader of a rebellion.”

Some observers say the martial law decree was more likely driven by Yoon’s hopes to frustrate an opposition-led bid to open a special investigation into allegations involving his wife, Kim Keon Hee. Kim’s allegations include spy camera footage showing the first lady accepting a luxury bag as a gift from a pastor; speculation she was involved in a stock price manipulation scheme; and revelations that she, along with Yoon, exerted inappropriate influence on the People Power Party to pick a candidate to run for a parliamentary by-election in 2022. Kim’s scandals and Yoon’s refusal to apologize and accept investigations provided the Democratic Party political ammunition throughout his term.

The conservative leader officially lost all presidential power, becoming the country’s second sitting president to be forcibly removed from power following former conservative President Park Geun-hye’s ouster through impeachment in 2017. Yoon also became the third president to be impeached by the National Assembly in the country’s constitutional history. Late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun was reinstated in the presidency after impeachment by the National Assembly in 2004.

Since the pronouncement of Yoon’s impeachment motion on 14th. December last year, total 11 (eleven) hearings have been held in the constitutional court until 25th. February, 2025. It took 111 days before the constitutional court’s final verdict, compared to 92 days for Park’s impeachment and 64 days for Roh’s impeachment. Yoon was apprehended in the presidential office on 15th. January, 2025, and was indicted under detention on 26th. January as a suspected ringleader of insurrection, becoming the country’s first sitting president to be arrested and prosecuted.

If convicted of being the insurrection ringleader, Yoon could face the death penalty or serve life-term. He was released on 08th. March as the prosecution decided not to appeal against the learned court’s release approval.

Team Maverick