President Yoon Suk Yeol is set to make a closing statement in front of eight judges on Tuesday in a Constitutional Court trial reviewing his impeachment over the in in December last year.
This is the last public hearing before the judges decide the politician’s fate.
It will begin at 2 p.m. local time (0500 GMT). Parliament’s judiciary committee head, Jung Chung-rae, will also give a closing statement.
What happens next as the impeachment trial wraps up
If the court upholds the parliament’s decision to impeach Yoon, he will have been removed from office less than three years into a five-year term.
A verdict is widely expected in mid-March. If impeached, South Korea will have to elect a president within the next 60 days.
Yoon is also facing a over insurrection charges related to the martial law declaration.
He is the first sitting South Korean president to stand trial in a criminal case. That case is expected to drag on well past his impeachment.
Yoon’s defense
Yoon has argued that he did not mean to impose full military rule. He said he had the right to impose martial law but only meant to sound an alarm over the opposition’s abuse of a parliamentary majority.
He has further argued that there is no point in debating accusations that he had ordered the military to enter the parliament and remove lawmakers gathering to rescind the martial law decree, since “nothing actually happened” and nobody was harmed.
Meanwhile, the South Korean parliament argued that Yoon’s judgment on what called for martial law was compromised and he could repeat his actions if reinstated.
Edited by: Louis Oelofse
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