Constitutional Court to hold impeachment trial within 180 days

The Constitutional Court of Korea held the impeachment trial on President Park Geun-hye on Friday. The trial comes as the second in Korean constitutional history, after 12 years since March 2004 when the National Assembly put motion to impeach former President Roh Moo-hyun.

The Court will open its bimonthly full bench deliberation no later than next week, and will review the impeachment resolution submitted by the National Assembly. In addition, the Court will respond swiftly to the impeachment on Park by setting up the impeachment trial task force. Like general criminal trials, impeachment also falls under the code of criminal procedure. At the current time, a total of 50 judicial researchers are supporting the constitutional judge.

Going beyond reviewing legal or constitutional violations, the court is in charge of making highly sophisticated political judgments. In principal, the court is responsible of reviewing impeachment causes evinced by the National Assembly - unjust personnel appointments and the subsequent leakage of official classified information, demands for fund-raising and bribery from Mir and K-Sports Foundation, suppression of the press, and the disappearance of seven hours during the Sewol Ferry crisis – all committed by the 60-year-old arrested Choi Soon-sil. As Park is denying all the facts revealed from the prosecutors’ investigations, experts at the court currently view that the impeachment will last longer than the recent trial against the former President Roh which took only 63 days.

While suspended from her duty, Park still remains as president, living in her official residence serviced by guards and protocol officials. Park also gets to maintain her title as the “president.”

Seok-Jun Bae eulius@donga.com