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Cho Eun-seok, the special counsel who oversaw an independent investigation into last year’s martial law crisis and alleged acts of insurrection and treason, announces the findings of his team’s investigation on Dec. 15, 2025, at the Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office in the city’s Seocho District. (Yonhap)

After concluding his investigation, the special counsel leading the probe into former president Yoon Suk-yeol’s short-lived martial law declaration on Dec. 3, 2024, said the attempted insurrection was based on conspiracy theories about rigged elections and designed to dissolve the National Assembly and revise the Constitution so that Yoon could remain in power.

That would amount to treason on the scale of the military coup on Dec. 12, 1979, when Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo mobilized the army to seize power and neutralize the National Assembly so they could position themselves for long-term rule over the country. While Yoon was impeached for his anachronistic martial law declaration, there are still many, including the leaders of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), who deny that his actions amounted to an insurrection.

Those claims only hold water as long as Yoon has not faced judicial punishment. Now that the special counsel has concluded his investigation, Korea’s courts should do their best to expedite the trials and swiftly conclude our reckoning with the insurrection.

As part of his investigation findings, special counsel Cho Eun-seok said Monday that Yoon’s martial law declaration amounted to a violent attempt to subvert the Constitution with the goal of eliminating his political opponents and monopolizing power. Yoon justified the martial law declaration after the fact by citing the “legislative tyranny” and “impeachment spree” of the Democratic Party, which was the top opposition party at the time, but the special counsel concluded that those were just excuses.

Yoon, who had been preparing for martial law since October 2023, initially launched drone incursions into Pyongyang with the purpose of provoking an armed provocation by North Korea. But when that failed, he pivoted to targeting his political opponents. Those opponents included not only the opposition party itself but Han Dong-hoon, head of the PPP and a long-time associate of Yoon’s in the prosecution service that the president had personally appointed to serve as justice minister.

Yoon labeled Han a “commie” and during a dinner with military commanders blustered that Han should be “brought in” and said he would “shoot him dead.” Such behavior is reminiscent of the vicious and tyrannical kings of bygone eras.

What would have become of Korea if Yoon had managed to finish out his presidency? The prospect is too horrible to even contemplate.

Following the special counsel’s announcement of the investigation's results, Koreans have been enraged to learn how former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and other Cabinet members betrayed their constitutional responsibilities. Despite their long careers in the government, those bureaucrats did not try to resist or stop Yoon as they saw the constitutional order being torn apart. If anything, video footage shows them docilely receiving his orders.

Similar behavior was observed from Rep. Choo Kyung-ho and other PPP leaders. One can’t help asking whether these politicians — who are ostensibly responsible for preserving the Constitution and people’s fundamental rights — even care about preserving democracy.

That’s why it’s hard to fathom why the courts have refused to issue pre-trial detention warrants for Han, Choo and former Justice Minister Park Sung-jae.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Jo Hee-de has refused to step in while Judge Jee Kui-youn bizarrely ordered the release of Yoon, the ringleader of the whole insurrection, earlier this year and is now handling the trial so poorly that we still haven’t gotten a verdict.

The glacial pace of justice by the courts has allowed PPP leaders and far-right groups under the banner of “Yoon Again” to misrepresent the special counsel’s investigation as a “witch hunt.”

That’s why, a full year later, we still haven’t escaped from the shadow of the insurrection.

How can Korea’s judicial branch — which prides itself on being the “last bastion of democracy” — simply ignore the current situation? It’s time that Jo’s judiciary fulfilled its duties as a coequal branch of government.

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