S Korea’s President Yoon defends martial regulation name at impeachment trial
Yoon says particular forces troopers despatched to Nationwide Meeting on December 3 weren’t there to disable the legislature.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has rejected allegations at his impeachment trial that he ordered members of the navy to pull lawmakers out of the Nationwide Meeting throughout final month’s short-lived martial regulation.
Yoon, 64, advised the Constitutional Court docket in Seoul on Tuesday that he had labored in public service with “a agency dedication to free democracy”.
He was then moved to a navy hospital, the Yonhap information company reported.
The impeached president has been incarcerated since final week beneath separate prison prices of main an rebellion by means of his try and enact martial regulation in early December, a transfer that shocked the nation and was overturned inside hours by the Nationwide Meeting.
Yoon mentioned on the listening to that particular forces troopers despatched to the legislature on December 3 weren’t there to disable the Nationwide Meeting or forestall it from blocking his martial regulation as a result of he knew such an motion would have led to an indefensible disaster.
“On this nation, parliament and information media are way more highly effective than the president, in a far superior place,” he advised the court docket.
If the court docket guidelines towards Yoon, he would lose the presidency, and an election can be referred to as inside 60 days.
His legal professionals outlined arguments in defence of Yoon’s martial regulation declaration, saying it was meant to sound the alarm over abuses dedicated by the opposition Democratic Occasion.
They argued the opposition’s actions had paralysed the federal government and pushed the nation’s democratic and constitutional order to the brink of collapse.
“The decree was meant merely to ascertain the format of martial regulation and by no means meant to be executed nor was it doable to execute it due to the potential for battle with higher-level legal guidelines,” lawyer Cha Gi-hwan advised the court docket.
Cha additionally denied testimony by navy commanders concerned within the martial regulation declaration who mentioned Yoon and his high aides ordered the arrests of some members of the legislature who had politically clashed with the president.
The Democratic Occasion, joined by minority events and likewise 12 members of Yoon’s Individuals Energy Occasion, achieved a two-thirds majority vote to question Yoon on December 14. The Constitutional Court docket is now deciding whether or not to uphold his impeachment.
The legal professionals prosecuting the case, who had been chosen by lawmakers, slammed the feedback made by Yoon and his legal professionals as “largely contradictory, irrational and unclear, making them completely incomprehensible”.
“In the event that they proceed to evade duty as they did right now, it’ll solely work towards them within the impeachment trial and trigger even better disappointment among the many public,” they mentioned on Tuesday.
Yoon stayed away from the primary two hearings final week, however the trial, which might final months, will proceed even when he’s absent.
