As Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment trial ends in South Korea, will embattled president prevail?

South Korea’s Constitutional Court held its final hearing on President Yoon Suk-yeol’s potential impeachment on Tuesday, with analysts predicting a unanimous decision to remove him from office.

The ruling is expected to be delivered in mid-March, two weeks after the final hearing, which would be similar to the timeline followed when former president Park Geun-hye was impeached over corruption in late 2016.

In their final arguments, Yoon’s defence lawyers repeated that his brief martial law decree on December 3 was intended to alert the public to the “parliamentary dictatorship” allegedly imposed by the opposition-dominated National Assembly, eliminate pro-North Korean forces and counter China’s alleged interference in South Korea’s elections.

Plaintiffs from the National Assembly countered that Yoon undermined the constitutional order by issuing an illegal martial law decree “to pave the way for dictatorship”, drawing parallels to past authoritarian rulers, including the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who was responsible for the 1980 Gwangju massacre.

Professor Lim Ji-bong of Sogang University Law School called it “highly unlikely” that Yoon would prevail in the impeachment trial and return to office, citing “ample evidence” that his actions violated the constitution that restricted the use of such extraordinary measures.