hankyoreh

President Yoon Suk-yeol waves to supporters after being released from the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, south of the capital city, on the afternoon of March 8, 2025. (Kim Young-won/Hankyoreh)

South Korea’s public prosecutors ultimately accepted the decision by a court to cancel President Yoon Suk-yeol's detention, and the president was released from custody on Saturday.

While prosecutors considered filing for an immediate appeal of the ruling, they seemed to have determined that an appeal wouldn’t be able to avoid legal controversy and that it was unlikely that a higher court would have accepted the appeal. The blowback from Yoon's release, however, is expected to grow more intense in the coming days and weeks. 

On Friday afternoon, a bench of the Seoul Central District Court presided over by Judge Jee Kui-youn ordered Yoon's detention to be rescinded. Seemingly taken aback by the unexpected ruling, prosecutors failed to respond immediately to the decision.  

Prosecutor General Shim Woo-jung reportedly met with Deputy Prosecutor General Lee Jin-dong and other prosecutors at the department chief level to discuss measures going forward late into the night on Friday, at which point they determined that they had little to gain from pursuing an appeal. However, the special team of prosecutors investigating the martial law incident, which oversaw the investigation into the president on insurrection charges, argued for an immediate appeal. 

One of the main areas of contention concerns the court’s cancelation of Yoon’s detention in part because it saw the period of the pre-detention hearing — which is excluded from the total detention period — as being calculated in terms of hours rather than days, as it normally is. 

The court’s decision to apply stricter standards for calculating the time excluded from the detention period (10 days, and, in the case of extension, a total of 20 days) differs greatly from the standard practice among courts and prosecutors.

Under the standards set by the court, defendants who were previously charged after being detained could make similar arguments, complicating how detention periods are calculated. For this reason, some within the prosecution service pushed for an immediate appeal that would allow for another court to weigh in on the matter. 

Indeed, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office noted in its statement upon Yoon’s release that the court’s decision “violates the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act, which stipulate that the period of incapacitation is to be calculated based on ‘days,’” calling the decision “unprecedented and distinct” and “contrary to the court’s precedents and practices which have been operating for decades.”

The SPO also said that its special team investigating Yoon’s martial law debacle was “of the opinion that it is necessary to appeal the court’s legally incorrect decision and await rectification.”

However, Shim instructed the investigative team to respond by actively arguing this point during the main trial for the case instead of making an immediate appeal. The prosecution concluded its deliberation by releasing Yoon late on Saturday afternoon, one day after the court decided to vacate the order for the president’s detention.

The decisions by the court and the prosecution service means that Yoon will await the decisions in his impeachment trial and criminal insurrection trial as a free man. It will be virtually impossible for authorities to put Yoon back into detention ahead of his insurrection trial as the Criminal Procedure Act does not allow suspects to be detained for a second time on the same charges. 

Tensions are expected to rise as Yoon, who is charged with the capital offense of leading an insurrection, awaits the results of his trial outside of prison. 

Seeing how Yoon continuously rallied his supporters even while behind bars, it is likely that he will try to further gin up the various groups opposing his impeachment following his release. Concerns are mounting about Korean society being plunged into intense discord leading up to and following the ruling in Yoon’s impeachment trial. 

By Jung Hwan-bong, staff reporter; Jeong Hye-min, staff reporter; Bae Ji-hyun, staff reporter; Kang Jae-gu, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]