SEOUL: When Yoon Suk Yeol (pic) was elected as president in 2022, South Korean voters never expected him to meet a fate similar to that of the previous conservative leader Park Geun-hye.
Once touted as an “anticorruption” investigator who put two of the country’s ex-presidents — Park and Lee Myung-bak — behind bars, Yoon’s popularity began to drastically fall even before taking office.
It had seemed like the 64-year-old would end his single, five-year term with his lack of popularity simply continuing. But halfway through his term, he shocked the world with his sudden declaration of martial law on Dec. 3.
Now, Yoon is the second president — after Park — to be removed from office by the Constitutional Court, and with a grimmer fate waiting for him in the near future.
Yoon’s road to the presidency was marked by a slew of special investigations that he led as a prominent prosecutor against some of the most powerful figures at the time.
In late 2016, he entered the limelight by prosecuting the corruption case against ex-President Park. Park eventually fell from grace by becoming the nation’s first democratically elected leader to be removed from office.
The following year, Yoon was tapped and promoted to lead the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office by the liberal president elected after Park, Moon Jae-in. Moon appointed him prosecutor general — the nation’s chief public prosecutor — in 2019.
Then, as prosecutor general, he launched a probe into then-Justice Minister Cho Kuk over corruption allegations against his wife and children. Cho stepped down just 36 days after accepting the post.
Yoon’s move to investigate Cho, one of Moon’s closest aides, was followed by a series of clashes between the then-prosecutor general and the Moon administration.
In March 2021, Yoon tendered his resignation as prosecutor general and announced his intention to run for president three months later.
The political novice beat current main opposition leader and his liberal opponent, Lee Jae-myung, by a razor-thin 0.73 percentage point, the narrowest margin in South Korean history.
Vetoes, scandals, turmoil
The first half of Yoon’s single, five-year term was filled with intense partisan clashes and frequent vetoing of bills passed by the opposition-led National Assembly. Such clashes became a major hurdle for his administration’s policy goals and initiatives.
From May 2022 to the end of November 2024, Yoon vetoed a total of 25 bills -- the second most of any South Korean president after Syngman Rhee's 45 vetoes.
Several of the rejected bills aimed to launch a special counsel probe into the scandals surrounding his wife, Kim Keon-hee.
Kim, in recent years, has been accused of violating antigraft law by accepting luxury gifts totaling over 5 million won (US$3,730), including a Christian Dior handbag, from a pastor, and being illegally involved in a stock manipulation scandal, among others.
Both Yoon and Kim have also been accused by the main opposition Democratic Party of interference in the conservative People Power Party’s candidate nomination process for the 2022 by-election and the April 2024 parliamentary elections.
Such scandals heavily weighed on Yoon’s popularity, and his approval ratings hovered around 20 to 30 per cent.
Observers expected him to spend the remainder of his term as a lame-duck president.
However, things took an unexpected turn on the night of Dec. 3 last year, when Yoon suddenly declared martial law, ordering martial troops and police to blockade and seize the Assembly as well as detain a list of political leaders and his opponents.
The country immediately plunged into political turmoil. Yoon was impeached on Dec 14 by the Assembly based on the crime of insurrection. He was arrested on Jan 15, becoming the country’s first sitting president to be arrested and then the first to be charged with a crime. He was released from detention on March 8 due to procedural issues with the warrant.
The Constitutional Court delivered its ruling to remove Yoon from power 111 days after it first received the impeachment motion from the Assembly. The trial included 11 rounds of hearings, as well as a record five weeks of deliberations.
Criminal trial
Separate from the Constitutional Court verdict, Yoon’s criminal trial on insurrection charges will formally begin April 14. If the Seoul Central District Court finds him guilty of insurrection, he could face the death penalty or life in prison.
Between the two potential punishments, Yoon is more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment, as South Korea has not carried out an execution since 1997.
Yoon is now stripped of his constitutional rights and privileges as president, and has to stand before the court as an ordinary citizen.
In any case, although presidents may claim immunity from criminal prosecution under the Constitution, this privilege does not extend to charges of insurrection.
Much like Park’s bribery case, Yoon’s insurrection case is likely to reach the Supreme Court.
While the Constitutional Court trial and the criminal trial are separate, Yoon’s claims made during his impeachment trial could work against the ousted president, a legal expert said.
“Yoon’s remarks, such as his acknowledgement of ordering the sending of troops of the National Election Commission, could affect his upcoming criminal trial,” Lee Chang-hyun, professor of law at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Law School, said.
“This could help the prosecutors in the process of proving the charges against Yoon while adding additional charges against him." - The Korea Herald/ANN
