South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s team says former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun mistakenly copied a key provision from last month’s martial law decree.
The legal representative of former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, who is currently on trial for allegedly participating in a rebellion plan, has denied President Yoon’s claim that he made a mistake in copying the orders to declare emergency martial law on December 3, 2024.
Kim’s lawyer, Lee Ha-sang, said on January 16, “There was no mistake in drafting the martial law decree.” He asserted that the purpose of the decree was to “ban political activities in a situation where the National Assembly is disabled and the country’s affairs are paralyzed.”
“Minister Kim himself wrote the first draft and President Yoon, of course, reviewed the entire content… They drafted it with the aim of banning political activities, because the forces involved in election fraud have controlled the National Assembly through political activities, and the decree is reasonable,” he said.
President Yoon said in a public speech on December 3 that “treasonous forces” were threatening to overthrow the state, and questioned the integrity of the parliamentary elections that his party lost. However, he did not provide specific evidence for this claim.
Prosecutors say Yoon’s martial law decree contains illegal and unconstitutional provisions, especially the provision banning all forms of political activities, including the National Assembly.
Under the South Korean Constitution, the president has no legal basis to ban the National Assembly, and the ban contradicts Article 77 of the Constitution, which stipulates that the president must lift martial law when the National Assembly votes to do so.
In a statement to the Constitutional Court, which is handling President Yoon’s impeachment case, his lawyers claim that the first controversial provision was copied directly by former Minister Kim from past martial law decrees, when the president had the power to dissolve the National Assembly. They also said that Mr. Yoon had “overlooked” this misspelled provision.
The president’s lawyer explained: “Mr. Yoon was not trying to ban all political activities of the National Assembly, but only to prevent treasonous activities during the martial law period.”
However, contrary to the claims of the president’s lawyers, no martial law decree in South Korea’s history has ever imposed a specific ban on the National Assembly.
During the Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan administrations, the president had the constitutional power to dissolve the National Assembly before the provision was removed in a 1987 constitutional amendment.
There have only been two instances in history where martial law decrees have mentioned banning political activity: one in 1972 and one in 1980.
In October 1972, President Park’s martial law decree said it would impose “a ban on all political activities and all demonstrations or gatherings with political purposes.”
In May 1980, during Chun’s presidency, a similar ban was imposed on political activities and demonstrations.
However, neither of these decrees mentioned banning the National Assembly, which raises questions about President Yoon’s assertion that the controversial provision was copied from past decrees.
