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Park Chan-dae, the floor leader of the top opposition Democratic Party, urges acting President Han Duck-soo to appoint Ma Eun-hyeok to the Constitutional Court at a press conference on March 30, 2025. (Yoon Woon-sik/Hankyoreh)

South Korea’s main opposition party accused acting President Han Duck-soo of conspiring to return the impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol to office and planning a second martial law declaration by refusing to appoint Constitutional Court justice nominee Ma Eun-hyeok. The Democratic Party vowed to take “serious” measures if Han does not confirm Ma’s appointment by Tuesday.
 
Park Chan-dae, the Democratic Party’s floor leader, made the announcement at a press conference at the National Assembly on Sunday. 

“Han’s refusal to instate Ma as a Constitutional Court justice is an attempt to get the court to reject Yoon’s impeachment,” Park said. “By waiting for the terms of two justices [Moon Hyung-bae and Lee Mi-son] to expire so the acting president can appoint two new justices, Han is scheming to get Yoon’s impeachment thrown out.” Park characterized such attempts as a “conspiracy to return Yoon to office” and a “plot to invoke martial law a second time.”
 
“If Han does not act on his duty to guard the Constitution by April 1, the Democratic Party will be forced to make a serious decision,” Park also commented, insinuating that the party will lead another effort to impeach the acting president. Han was returned to his post as prime minister and acting president last week after being previously impeached in December. 
 
The opposition party has drawn the first Friday of the month, April 4, as their final cutoff date for the court to announce its ruling on Yoon’s impeachment. 

“If the court does not meet that deadline, the National Assembly will do everything in its power to intervene,” a Democratic Party official commented.

One such option includes enacting a bill to extend the terms of Constitutional Court justices whose terms expire without a nominated successor. The Democratic Party plans to introduce the amendments to the Constitutional Court Act during the Parliamentary Legislation and Judiciary Committee’s legislative subcommittee meeting on Monday and the committee’s plenary meeting on Tuesday.
 
On the other hand, the Democratic Party leadership has distanced itself from some of its first-time lawmakers who are threatening to continue impeaching members of the Cabinet until Ma is appointed. Park said that the party is “not reviewing any plan to continue rapid-fire impeachments.” 

An official with ties to the party’s leadership said, “A series of impeachments will be ineffective in this current situation and will be nothing more than an embarrassment in the eyes of the people.”
 
The two most prominent voices within the Democratic Party called for Yoon’s impeachment but with very different takes. Park claimed, “If the Constitutional Court Justices dismiss Yoon’s impeachment case and rule to throw South Korea into chaos, they will be remembered in history as the new five Eulsa traitors” — the five Korean officials who signed the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905, known also as the “Eulsa Unwilling Treaty,” which made Korea a protectorate of Imperial Japan.
 
Meanwhile, Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party, wrote on Facebook, “I understand that the Constitutional Court justices, who have been given the hefty challenge of deciding the fate of South Korea, are spending many a sleepless night deliberating as the weight of the universe rests on their shoulders. I can only hope that the court hurries to make a sage decision that is in the interest of the people.”
 
His calm tone and relatively conservative language serve to avoid putting pressure on the Constitutional Court while calling for Yoon to be swiftly removed from office.

By Ki Min-do, staff reporter

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