대통령 탄핵심판제도상의 딜레마

The president has direct democratic legitimacy in that it is the only figure who is elected directly by the people among the high ranking officials subject to impeachment. In addition, the president has a stable term of office guaranteed by the Constitution. On the other hand, the impeachment is the means by which the president is removed from office against his or her will. This article believes that the conflicting relationship between these two aspects leads to some dilemmas throughout the presidential impeachment adjudication. There are some challenges in this adjudication from the beginning as it proceeds in a heated, complicated political situation, but the dilemmas as mentioned below add to the difficulty on this adjudication. In this paper, we look at the causes, specific contents, and solutions of these dilemmas. First of all, as a dilemma on procedural matter, we focus on the conflict between the principle of quickness and prudence in proceedings. This paper takes the position that it is reasonable to pursue the principle of prudence to the maximum under the guidance of the relative superiority of the principle of quickness. As a dilemma regarding substantive judgment, we pay attention to the problems that the Constitutional Court faces when judging whether he or she violated criminal laws. On this matter, this paper attempts to distinguish between principles and exceptions. In principle, the Constitutional Court should make judgment on all the grounds for impeachment presented by the impeachment prosecutor, but there would be some exceptions where it is possible to reserve judgment on the issue of criminal law violations. Finally, the decision-making dilemma arises when more than 6 justices think the request for impeachment could be upheld, while the others have not yet decided. This paper defends the perspective that in order to make stronger the authority and legitimacy of the impeachment decision, it is more appropriate to maximize the number of justices on the court opinion, even if the impeachment grounds might be reduced.