SEOUL, South Korea — Tensions are mounting across South Korea ahead of a ruling expected next week on the fate of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The nation’s Constitutional Court is weighing insurrection charges brought against Mr. Yoon, who was impeached and temporarily detained after a short-lived attempt to declare martial law in December.
Acting President Choi Sang-mok has repeatedly demanded calm and vowed to crack down on violence. Though most protests have been peaceful, the country was shocked in January when pro-Yoon protesters stormed a court, injuring police and causing damage.
Pro- and anti-Yoon groups gathered in the nation’s capital again Saturday, after a week of protests that have shutdown streets and required rerouting of traffic in the central Gwanghwamun area.
Police have established barriers around the Constitutional Court, a focus of demonstrations. Police also said Friday that the day of the ruling will be an “Emergency Level 1” event, meaning all officers’ leave will be cancelled and the entire force will be ready.
Last week, officials announced that 14,000 officers — more than 10% of the national force — will be deployed to Seoul on the day a verdict is delivered.
However, there is still no indication of when that day will be.
Deliberations at the Constitutional Court, which is being swamped by pro- and anti-Yoon petitions, extended beyond the time taken in the nation’s two prior presidential impeachment cases.
Ongoing silence from the court follows two minor legal victories for the disempowered conservative president and his team.
What’s taking so long?
In both past presidential impeachment cases, the court pre-announced the date for its final verdict on a Friday. A similar announcement anticipated Friday did not happen.
Impeachment deliberations in Mr. Yoon’s case are now the longest in Korea’s presidential history.
It took the court 14 days to rule on the impeachment of Roh Moo-hyun (overturned) in 2004. It took 11 days to rule on the impeachment of Park Geun-hye (upheld) in 2017.
Hearings on Mr. Yoon’s case ended on Feb. 25, meaning deliberations have been underway for 18 days and counting.
“It’s like Defcon-1!” said Yang Sun-mook, a former foreign affairs advisor to the Democratic Party of Korea. “I watch TV a couple of hours a day, and they are focusing on a verdict sometime in the middle of next week.”
Earlier related impeachments of a state auditor and prosecutors, pushed through the National Assembly by opposition parties in the wake of Mr. Yoon’s martial law declaration, have been unanimously overturned by the court on Thursday.
Warnings of unrest
Choe Jae-hae, chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection of South Korea was cleared by the court of accusations that he had displayed political bias – in his audit of Mr. Yoon’s early-term decision to relocate the presidential office, and in auditing an opposition lawmaker to force her resignation.
The three prosecutors had been accused of soft-probing a stock-price manipulation case involving the First Lady, Kim Keon-hee. Ms. Kim’s alleged misdemeanors have been a frequent target of the main opposition, the leftist DPK.
The rulings delivered “a legal blow to the DPK’s reckless political impeachments” Mr. Yoon’s People Power Party said after the decisions. The presidential office added that the decisions served as “a warning against the opposition’s excessive use of impeachment.”
“The political atmosphere has rapidly changed,” said Kim Chul-hong, an academic and organizer of a coalition of Christian conservatives who support Mr. Yoon. “Patriots finally got the upper hand.”
The Constitutional Court’s Thursday decisions followed Mr. Yoon‘s release from weeks of detention by the Seoul Central District Court.
That court has been hearing a case of insurrection brought against Mr. Yoon by prosecutors. His lawyers pointed out flaws in related legal procedures, leading to his release on March 8.
Greeted by thousands of cheering supporters, he bowed, waved and held up his fist in a sign of defiance.
“There is even a sentiment among some DPK supporters that they made a mistake by pushing too hard, by pressing Yoon into detention,” Mr. Yang said.
But many leftists are incensed. In a piece of political theater, a group of DPK lawmakers last week had their heads shaved in public.
Outside observers call for impartiality.
“What the country really needs is a decision that does not adhere to any public mood but follows the rule of law in the most transparent way possible,” said David Tizzard, who teaches Korean Studies at Seoul Women’s University.
Both pro- and anti-Yoon bodies hold the opposite point of view — and are offering similarly dark warnings.
On March 13, Korea’s leading left-wing newspaper, The Hankyoreh, cited polls that find a majority of Koreans support Yoon’s removal and editorialized that, were Yoon to be reinstated, “There would be unrest around the country … Korea would face economic pandemonium and a crisis in foreign policy and national security.”
An overturning of impeachment, “would be an overt rejection of the popular will,” the newspaper added. “No constitutional body can endure if it fails to respect the popular will.”
Conservatives offer similar cautions.
“I am sure Yoon is going to return to office soon,” Mr. Kim said. “Otherwise, there will be turbulence that cannot be contained by police.”
