The vote to impeach South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was a dramatic fall from grace for the conservative leader, who must now suffer the ignominy of being forced from office well before the end of his five-year term.
But the vote on Saturday in the national assembly, where the impeachment motion just exceeded the required two-thirds majority after 12 members of Yoon’s party sided with the opposition, does not mean his presidency has ended.
Attention will now turn to South Korea’s constitutional court, which faces unprecedented challenges in handling Yoon’s impeachment.
The court must decide within 180 days whether to remove Yoon from office or reject the impeachment and restore his powers. If the court removes him or he resigns, a presidential election must be held within 60 days.
The impeachment motion – which passed with the support of 204 of the assembly’s 300 lawmakers, with 85 voting against – is merely the first step in removing Yoon from office. And it could end in failure.
While his presidential powers will immediately be passed on to the prime minister – and now acting president – Han Duck-soo, Yoon’s opponents must wait to learn if they have succeeded in making him only the second South Korean president to be successfully impeached.
The other was Park Geun-hye, who was forced out in 2017 for corruption and abuse of power. Her legal nemesis was, ironically, Yoon Suk Yeol, then South Korea’s prosecutor general.
In 2004, the then president, Roh Moo-hyun, was impeached on charges of failing to maintain political neutrality as required of a high public official. But the constitutional court rejected the motion after two months of deliberation and Roh went on to complete his term in office.
The constitutional court will examine whether Yoon violated the constitution through his martial law declaration and subsequent actions. In addition, he is being investigated over potential insurrection charges – a crime that can carry the death penalty.
For insurrection to be proven, investigating authorities would need to demonstrate both intent to subvert the constitutional order and evidence of actual violent acts. Special forces troops breaking windows to enter parliament and scuffling with parliamentary staff on the night martial law was declared could be examined as potential evidence.
The constitutional and criminal processes will operate independently, but if Yoon is arrested during the impeachment process it could influence the court’s deliberations.
As crowds celebrated Yoon’s impeachment, and applauded MPs as they left the assembly building, uncertainty clouds the next part of the process.
The constitutional court usually has nine justices but currently has just six, as three who left their positions in October have yet to be replaced. To be approved, an impeachment vote must usually receive the support of at least six of the nine justices.
In Yoon’s case, however, all six would have to approve Saturday’s decision in parliamentary. In other words, just one dissenting voice on the bench could give him a reprieve, although his position would be severely – and perhaps fatally – weakened.
The constitutional court typically requires seven justices to deliberate cases, although it recently allowed six-judge deliberations in a separate impeachment case. Legal experts believe the court would be reluctant to make such a momentous decision without a full bench, given the political gravity of removing a president.
The most likely way forward is for the court to ask the national assembly to appoint three new justices before proceeding with Yoon’s impeachment trial.