The Arrest of President Yoon Suk Yeol

Yoon Suk Yeol, the lionized prosecutor-turned-politician who led the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye before becoming president himself, was arrested this morning at 10:33 am Seoul time on charges of insurrection related to his declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024. He is the first sitting South Korean president ever to be arrested.

Q1: Why was Yoon arrested?

A1: After the National Assembly impeached Yoon on December 14, 2024, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) has been leading a joint criminal investigation into Yoon's abuse of power and insurrection charges over his declaration of martial law. CIO investigators summoned Yoon three times for questioning, but Yoon refused to comply with each summons, insisting that the CIO has no legal authority to investigate insurrection charges.

In response, the CIO obtained detention and search warrants from the Seoul Western District Court at the end of last year to detain Yoon. They failed the first time 12 days ago, but today, the CIO arrested Yoon shortly after a standoff with the Presidential Security Service (PSS).

Q2: Why was there a standoff between the CIO and PSS?

A2: Two government agencies were pitted against each other. The CIO, as the legal branch of government, was trying to enforce the law, while the PSS was bound to protect the president, who remains in office but has been suspended from his duties. Amid rising tensions between Yoon's supporters and those calling for his arrest outside the presidential residence, the potential for these two branches of government to come in conflict with each other was real, but thankfully averted.

Q3: What is the relationship between the criminal investigation and the impeachment judgment?

A3: There are two legal processes taking place against the president - an impeachment judgment and a criminal investigation. The impeachment trial is distinct from regular court trials as it takes place at the Constitutional Court and reviews violations of the Constitution and other laws. If the Court upholds the impeachment motion, Yoon will be removed from office. However, if he is convicted of abuse of power or insurrection charges in the criminal investigation, he could face imprisonment. The implication is that the Constitutional Court's ruling on Yoon's impeachment motion will likely be reached more quickly than the criminal trial, especially since the Court's proceedings started this week.

Q4: What are the next steps going forward in each track?

A4: Under criminal investigation, the COI will detain Yoon for up to the next 48 hours for interrogation. Yoon could be indicted depending on the investigation outcome. The Constitutional Court has up to 180 days to make its decision, and it appears intent on speeding up the hearing process due to the gravity of the presidential impeachment case.

Overall, Yoon's arrest, which took place 43 days after his declaration of martial law, is an unprecedented event that has plunged South Korea into uncharted territory. The process-starting from his martial law declaration to his arrest-revealed both the resilience and fragility of South Korean democracy, leaving the country further divided.

However, a prolonged political crisis poses even greater dangers, making it time to concentrate on stability to minimize any political fallout and economic repercussions. The government has expressed confidence that the Korean economy can remain resilient despite the ongoing governance crisis, pointing to past performance in the 2004 and 2016 impeachments of Roh Moo-hyun and Park Geun-hye respectively. While such assessments are meant to instill investor confidence, they do a disservice for two reasons.

First, projecting false confidence in the economy removes the pressure for political actors to step back from self-absorbed infighting and find the quickest and most effective path back to effective governance.

Second, unlike the presidential impeachments in 2004 and 2016, when China's economic growth and semiconductor export performance helped South Korea's recovery from the impeachment crises, the current economic conditions surrounding Yoon's impeachment are far less favorable - two wars in Europe and the Middle East, slow Chinese economic growth, impending U.S. tariffs, semiconductor export controls. Time is of the essence in resolving the political crisis.

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