December 5, 2024
Seoul – Yoon faces deepening political isolation amid growing threat of impeachment
-All senior aides and cabinet members resigned
-The opposition party submits a bill to impeach Defense Minister Yoon
-The Minister of Defense tendered his resignation and apologized and said he would take full responsibility
– The ruling party and the Prime Minister held a meeting at the Cheong Wa Dae, and the People's Party was divided over the severing of relations with Yoon Eun-hye.
-The president of the Supreme Court said he would review the illegality of the declaration of martial law
– For the first time in the history of the Legislature, armed forces forced their way into Parliament
-The Constitutional Court faces 3 vacancies and requires at least 1 new judge for impeachment proceedings
South Korea was plunged into unexpected chaos when President Yun Seok-yeol suddenly declared emergency martial law late on Tuesday, prompting the main opposition party to push for his immediate impeachment and the ruling party to consider severing ties with the embattled leader.
Although Yin backed down earlier than expected, the damage from six hours of chaos had been done. Martial law troops broke into the parliament, a symbol of democracy, with guns, and parliamentary aides sprayed fire extinguishers in response. The video shocked the country.
The opposition says Yoon must be impeached now.
The Democratic Party of Korea and five other opposition parties submitted a bill to impeach the president on Wednesday afternoon, aiming to pass it between Friday and Saturday. The main opposition plans to table the bill at a plenary session around midnight.
The main opposition party also proposed an impeachment bill against Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun. The impeachment bill needs to be voted on within 72 hours after it is submitted to the plenary session. The defense minister said he had tendered his resignation.
Kim Jong Un said that all members of the country's armed forces mobilized while martial law was in effect acted under his command and that he alone was responsible for what happened.
Kim Jong-un apologized to the South Korean people for the chaos caused by martial law.
The parties said in a joint statement that the president's “disastrous defeat of martial law opened the door to his own impeachment.”
Calls for Yin's impeachment have gained new momentum outside parliament.
Around noon on Wednesday, the Democratic Party joined a large number of supporters on the steps of the main parliament building to call on Yoon Eun-hye to step down.
They held signs in the December cold and chanted slogans such as “Impeach Yin” and “It's time to let him go” for about an hour.
Main opposition leader Lee Jae-myung said during the rally that Yun is the kind of leader who “might launch a limited war on the Korean peninsula if he believes that emergency martial law involving the armed forces is ineffective.”
He raised the possibility of Yoon declaring martial law a second time, which could anger North Korea.
“(Because) Yin may declare martial law again due to the recent failure, we now face a greater risk. The greater danger is that (the second decree) may anger North Korea and disrupt the military demarcation line, which may ultimately lead to armed conflict, “Li explained.
Democrats have been holding Yoon impeachment rallies every Saturday for the past month but have not had much success in attracting people to join.
The day after martial law was declared, a wave of spontaneous protests denouncing the president broke out across the country.
Candlelight rallies were announced in major cities including Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, Sejong and Jeju, triggering a series of protests in 2016 that led to the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye.
According to the Democratic Party, main opposition party lawmaker Lee Jae-myung and ruling party lawmaker Han Dong-hoon discussed the presidential impeachment.
“We discussed (the impeachment bill) earlier in plenary session,” Lee told reporters earlier Wednesday.
With the threat of impeachment looming, President Yoon's martial law order, which gives the military extra powers and has historically allowed the president to tightly control political events and the media, could backfire on him, one expert said. The move would plunge him deeper into political isolation, with supporters within the ruling conservative People's Power party turning their backs on him and the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea preparing to impeach him.
“Strong signs of Yoon's political isolation have been there for some time, but his declaration of martial law is expected to further entangle him,” Park Won-ho, a professor of political science and international relations at Seoul National University, said by phone.
“His party members (including People's Power Party chairman Han Dong-hoon) asked him to quit the party, which means he has lost a large part of his political shield. In fact, 190 MPs out of 300 MPs voted unilaterally in support of the motion to end martial law enforcement, This means that the vast majority of the members of Parliament decided not to side with him,” he added.
The ruling bloc was deeply divided over Yun Eun-hye's decree on Wednesday, with some expressing opposition to declaring martial law.
Han, leader of the ruling People's Power Party, said it was “completely wrong” for the president to declare martial law. He added that Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who is accused of advising the president on imposing military rule, needs to be fired. The ruling party leadership also expressed the need for the entire cabinet to resign.
All cabinet members and aides to President Yoon Seok-yeol offered to resign after Yoon Seok-yeol's unexpected decree triggered a six-hour fiasco.
At 2 p.m., Prime Minister Han Deok-soo held an emergency meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul to discuss these issues with representatives of the ruling People's Power Party and Yoon's staff. The closed-door meeting lasted about 1.5 hours.
Attending the meeting were Korean Political Consultative Conference Minister Bang Ki-sun, People's Power Party Chairman Han Jung and Chief Secretary Park Jung-ha, as well as Yoon's chief of staff Jung Jin-suk and Chief Secretary for Government Affairs Hong Hong.
At around 5 p.m., Prime Minister South Korea and representatives of the People’s Power Party went to the Blue House in Yongsan District, Seoul.
As of press time, the Prime Minister's Office, the ruling party and Blue House have not issued any statement on the outcome of this meeting.
According to Blue House news on Wednesday morning, all of Yoon Eun-hye's aides, including Chief of Staff Chung, National Policy Bureau Director Sung Tae-yoon, National Security Advisor Shin Won-sik, and 11 senior secretaries have tendered their resignations. The decision was taken after a closed-door meeting of senior secretaries chaired by Mr Cheng.
This is the second time Yoon Eun-hye's aides have proposed doing so since the ruling bloc suffered a crushing defeat in the April election. At the time, Yoon Jeong replaced some of them, including then-Chief of General Staff Lee Kwan-seop and then Chief Secretary for Government Affairs Han Oh-seop.
At a separate meeting chaired by South Korea's prime minister at 11 a.m., all cabinet members, including 18 government ministers, tendered their resignations.
Rep. Lee Joon-seok, the former leader of the People's Power Party, compared Mr Yoon to a dictator in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
Lee said South Korea's democracy was “temporarily threatened by the actions of villains with extremist views,” referring to the president.
An impeachment motion requires at least 200 of the 300 MPs, or two-thirds of MPs, to vote in favor of the impeachment motion before it can be submitted to the Constitutional Court, which has the power to finalize the proposal.
The Constitutional Court Act provides that in order to support an impeachment motion, at least seven of the nine justices are required to review and hear the case. Six of the nine judges of the Constitutional Court must then vote in favor of the motion. Currently, there are only six judges, as Parliament has yet to elect successors to the three judges who recently retired.
Asked whether it would be “difficult” for the main opposition party to impeach Yoon under the current Constitutional Court, Cho replied that the Democratic Party plans to ask the prime minister to serve as party leader in an acting capacity if the president's powers are stripped away. Three judges.
Legal experts said the latest martial law order, which involves armed forces forcing their way into parliament for the first time in constitutional history, could lead to Yoon being charged with treason or rebellion.
“If the military forces its way into the parliament and impedes or prevents the parliament's decision-making process, then (Yin) could be charged with rebellion or treason,” said Lim Chi-bong, a professor at Sogang University Law School.
Article 87 of the Criminal Law stipulates that “anyone who commits violence for the purpose of occupying national territory or subverting the Constitution shall be punished in accordance with the law.”
The constitution states that the president cannot be subject to criminal charges while in office, except for rebellion or treason.
South Korea's Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae told reporters on Wednesday that the Supreme Court will review the procedures followed in Yoon Eun-hye's decree and confirmed that the judiciary will “firmly perform its duties during challenging times.”
“The judiciary will ensure its role as the ultimate protector of citizens' rights and liberties and will work to mitigate any concerns about judicial independence and integrity,” Cao said.
Asked about procedural irregularities in Yin's declaration of martial law, such as not receiving cabinet approval or issuing appropriate notifications to senior political officials before declaring martial law, Zhao said the judiciary would “observe the procedures followed” in order to take action. Fix this problem later.
Regarding the question of whether the sudden declaration of martial law could be grounds for impeachment, Cho said: “I will resolve this issue at the appropriate time.” After declaring martial law for six hours, the opposition Democratic Party said on Wednesday that its lawmakers would call on Yoon Eun-hye to step down or else Take steps to impeach him.
