12·3 비상계엄 사태에 따른 대통령 탄핵의 쟁점

At around 10:26 p.m. on December 3, 2024 President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law through a public address. It was the first martial law declaration in 44 years since 1980. The reason for declaring martial law was “to protect the constitutional order.” Fortunately, the National Assembly passed a resolution to lift martial law in about two hours and 40 minutes. After that, President Yoon did not announce the lifting of the martial law until 4:27 a.m., which should have been done “immediately”. The declaration of martial law did not follow any of the procedures or requirements for the declaration of martial law, and it was not even officially notified to the National Assembly. As it was later revealed, there is no doubt that the declaration of martial law did not meet any of the procedural requirements for martial law, nor did it meet any of the substantive requirements. Nothing from the declaration of martial law followed the form prescribed by law. It was an emergency martial law declaration full of loopholes. This bogus declaration of martial law, which the president himself cited as a reason to “protect the free and democratic constitutional order” just before the declaration of martial law, but the democratic constitutional order that, which had been in place since 1987, was still functioning more or less normally, if not perfectly. That night, President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, deployed military forces to block the National Assembly, which might amount to a treason, and also deployed martial law troops against National Election Commission and the media outlets, thereby disrupting the constitution of the Republic of Korea. The vulnerability of the constitution and democracy has been exposed vividly. Korean society could have been plunged into dictatorship. Fortunately, this was averted by citizens exercising their right to resist and soldiers disobeying orders. However, South Korea’s democratic constitution has been seriously challenged by Yoon Suk-yeol’s declaration of a state of emergency on December 3. How can democracy be consolidated? How can the crisisridden democratic constitution be restored? The declaration of martial law on 3 December is Yoon Suk-yeol s self-coup, using martial law as a tool. Since the 1948 Constitution, the Republic of Korea has experienced several cases of usurpation of sovereignty by a popularly elected president, as well as military coups and military seizure of power. However, the coup carried out by Yoon Suk-yeol can be described as the worst one in history. It was a coup in which the popularly elected president mobilised the army, which was funded by the people’s taxes, to point guns at the people and try to take away their sovereignty. The impeachment trial of Yoon Suk-yeol and the forces involved in the coup is underway, and criminal investigations and trials of the perpetrators of the coup are also ongoing. In order to properly restore democracy, the first step is to severely punish the state criminals. This article was written to record the facts regarding the December 3 martial law declaration and to argue its illegality.