Seoul, South Korea – The catchphrase “8-0” was blasted on loudspeakers and seen on placards in Seoul’s historic centre of Jongno District, where thousands of critics of impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol gathered.
The demonstrators on Thursday were calling for Yoon to be impeached, confident that all eight acting justices in the country’s Constitutional Court would decide to uphold an impeachment motion passed by the National Assembly in mid-December after Yoon’s short-lived martial law bid.
When the final verdict was announced on Friday, the court ruled unanimously to uphold Yoon’s impeachment and remove him from office for briefly declaring military rule. The decision has set in motion a presidential election, which must be held within 60 days.
Nestled between ancient palaces and state-of-the-art museums, the neighbourhood of Anguk, where the court is located – and which translates to “peaceful country” – was fortified by hundreds of police buses on Friday morning.
More than 14,000 police officers have been mobilised throughout the city while the Anguk subway station, local businesses and several schools were closed in case of disturbances following the court’s ruling.
In front of Gyeongbokgung Palace on Thursday, a student organisation staged what sounded like a celebratory band performance in anticipation of a successful impeachment decision that many hoped would end a four-month-long standoff over Yoon’s future.
“I completely trust that they will make the right decision,” said Song Hye-jung, who was watching the band from afar on Thursday.
“But with so many things that have happened in the last few months, I have the tiniest of uncertainty still.”
There have been two acting presidents since Yoon was suspended from office in December, as Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who was next in line to the presidency, was also impeached by the National Assembly.
While Han was reinstated as acting president last month, it had taken a record 38 days for the court to deliver its ruling on Yoon.
“By looking at how long it took for the court to make its decision, there might have been one or two dissenting votes. So, it might not turn out to be a perfect eight to zero,” Lim Woon-taek, a sociology professor at Keimyung University and a former member of the Presidential Commission on Policy Planning, told Al Jazeera ahead of the ruling.
“The key point in this fiasco was that the whole nation could watch what was happening on the night martial law was declared through live feeds on televisions and their phones. It was clear to see that the president overstepped the limits of his powers,” Lim said.
Yoon’s case had centred on whether he broke the law by engaging in five key actions: declaring martial law, writing up a martial law decree, deploying troops to the National Assembly, raiding the National Election Commission and allegedly attempting to arrest politicians.
“None of the five reasons are light whatsoever. The actions on December 3 can be seen as an attempt to suspend the constitutional government, freeze all political activities, and replace the National Assembly with a substitute force,” said Chung Tae-ho, a professor at Kyung Hee University specialising in constitutional law.
As a graduate law student at Seoul National University, Lim Hyeon-chang blamed the prolonged decision in Yoon’s case on the Constitutional Court being too sensitive towards public opinion.
“It’s already been four months of protesting for many of our students, so we definitely felt tired from all the wait. But with spring and the new semester starting, there’s hope that this social chaos will go back to normalcy finally,” he said.
While pro-impeachment protests gathered in their thousands on Thursday night, pro-Yoon supporters were harder to find.
In a small group of fewer than 10 people, Grace Kim held a poster reading, “NO impeachment”.
“I’m fully convinced that the court will decide to reinstate Yoon in office. The whole process of suspending and impeaching our president was illegal from the start,” the 63-year-old said.
“If the court decides otherwise, we will exercise our right of resistance and fight until truth prevails,” she said.
