Summary
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached by the National Assembly for his unconstitutional declaration of martial law.
The vote, which required a two-thirds majority, saw support from both the opposition and members of Yoon’s governing party.
Yoon, suspended from state duties, faces investigation and potential rebellion charges, while the country grapples with political turmoil and North Korean propaganda.
The US Congress impeached Trump in 2019, and again in 2021. Where we failed is conviction.
Hopefully South Korea has better success with step two.
The Impeachment process isn’t identical between the two. US congress has a lower bar for impeachment but requires a 2/3rd vote in the senate to convict which is where those both failed.
In South Korea they have a 2/3rd threshold to impeach and then it goes to a constitutional court to uphold or not uphold it. The prime minister becomes acting president right after impeachment while the constitutional court reviews it
There’s recent precident of the constitutional court upholding an impeachment unanimously in south korea in 2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Park_Geun-hye
Gotcha. So they’re already past the more challenging phase of the process. Great!
Although the constitutional court does have 3 vacancies right now and it does look more conservative at the moment so it’s not fully a given that it will get through
Thanks for the insight. I’m not familiar with their governmental structure, let alone the current climate.
Between the ongoing protests and now celebration in the streets over the impeachment vote, do you think the constitutional court will consider the repercussions of their decision on civil unrest?
Given my limited knowledge and all of the highly unpredictable things going on in democracies around the world, I’m just gonna opt out of making any firm predictions myself. We’ll find out in at most 180 days (they have that amount of time to decide)
I’ll note that others predict the court will ask the national assembly to try to fill those 3 vacancies. If they do so, it would make it easier to pass since it requires 6 to vote in favor for it to succeed regardless of vacancies. There are currently only 6 on the court
I’ll also note that in 2004, the constitutional court rejected Roh Moo-hyun’s impeachment when there was strong backlash to the impeachment in the public. The charges there were much more minor than what happened here
Very interesting. I’ll keep an eye out for updates. Thanks again for your insight!
An impeachment without a conviction is useless. Fucker is going to be president again despite 2 toothless “impeachments”. Might as well have called it a “mildly stern talking-to without any actual consequences”
The only reason to even mention it is to shine light on the glaring injustice.
I totally agree the result was injustice. Just saying that there isn’t a difference yet.
Sorry, didn’t mean to come off on the offensive if i did – I’m just beyond-frustrated with this shit anymore 😅
Nah. You’re fine. We’re all pretty fed up with this.
They knew it would fail both times. They wanted it on record that some of the government tried to do something about this guy. So when things happen over the next four years that maybe even turns some Republicans against him, it won’t be like oh my god you can’t just impeach the President. It will be Donald Trump impeached for third time, but with a different result.
I realize what I’ve written is practically copium, but it is one of the real reasons they impeached twice while knowing they would fail to convict.