President Yoon Suk Yeol is accused by the opposition of committing treason when he had troops break into the National Assembly as he invoked martial law late Tuesday.
What Yoon did on the night of martial law -- deploying soldiers to the Assembly buildings and trying to thwart parliamentary efforts to overturn his decision -- was a botched coup attempt, main opposition leader Rep. Lee Jae-myung said Thursday at a meeting of the Democratic Party of Korea leadership.
Labeling Yoon an “insurrectionist,” Lee said the president tried to block lawmakers from gathering at the Assembly to defy martial law decree through police and military force.
While the president has the power to impose martial law, a majority vote by the Assembly can reverse it.
“It was an attempt to completely dominate the legislature and stop it from performing its duties entrusted by the Constitution of keeping the executive in check,” Lee said.
Lee claimed the martial law troops, some of whom were members of special forces, sought to arrest him as well as Woo Won-shik, the Assembly speaker, and Han Dong-hoon, the leader of the ruling People Power Party.
The Democratic Party on Thursday reported Yoon to the police on charges of treason, after the Justice Party, a liberal third party, filed treason charges against the president with prosecutors a day prior.
Treason, or attempted treason, is one of only two offenses a sitting president can be indicted for. If the treason charges against Yoon stand, he could be the first South Korean president to be indicted while in office.
The president declaring martial law may not in itself amount to treason, according to criminal law expert Lee Chang-hyun. But what followed, such as seeking to arrest political leaders, might, he said.
“If the claims raised by the Democratic Party are true, inhibiting parliamentary power to that extent could be seen as an attempt to subvert the Constitution, which would be treason,” the criminal law professor, who taught at the top court’s institute for training judges, told The Korea Herald.
Kim Jun-woo, a lawyer and former Justice Party leader, agreed that obstructing the Assembly could count as treason.
Treason is defined in the Criminal Code as an act of overthrowing institutions whose functions are protected by the Constitution, or stopping them from exercising their functions through the use of force.
“By this definition, what the president attempted may constitute treason,” Kim told The Korea Herald.
If not treason, Yoon may still face charges of abuse of power, which is an impeachable offense, he said.
The Democratic Party says it has closed-circuit TV footage of martial law troops barging into the empty office of one of the ruling party leaders. In other footage troops were seen roaming the floor where the speaker’s office is located, the party said.
“It is suspicious that the troops were exactly where Assembly members were attempting to convene a plenary meeting to vote to reject martial law,” Rep. Kim Yong-min, the Democratic Party’s deputy chief of policy, told The Korea Herald.
The troops also left behind cable ties used as handcuffs, which the Democratic Party suspects might have been for arresting lawmakers.
“The troops tried to bind opposition leaders, and even ruling party leaders, with these,” Rep. Kim Min-seok, the Democratic Party’s second-in-charge, said during a rally calling on Yoon to step down Wednesday.
