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Former President Yoon Suk-yeol departs from the Seoul Central District Court for the Seoul Detention Center after appearing before a judge reviewing a request for a warrant for his detention on July 9, 2025. (pool photo)

Former South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is a world record holder. He is the only person in the history of the world to have been arrested while still sitting president. 

After invoking martial law on Dec. 3, 2024, Yoon was impeached on Dec. 14 after the impeachment bill was passed by the National Assembly, and was arrested on Jan. 19 on suspicion of masterminding an insurrection. However, the entire country was flung into a panic when a court and public prosecutors opted to let Yoon walk free on March 8.

Thankfully, the Constitutional Court upheld Yoon’s impeachment on April 4, officially removing him from office. Lee Jae-myung was then elected as the new president in the snap election held on June 3, and the National Assembly passed several bills mandating special counsel probes. The special counsel focusing on the martial law crisis requested a warrant to detain Yoon as they investigate additional suspicions, including aggravated obstruction of official duties. 

Yoon was taken back into custody again on July 10, proving that justice will prevail, even though it might not prevail immediately.  

Despite being detained, Yoon is citing health issues to ignore prosecutors’ summons and avoid appearing in court for his ongoing trial. It seems altogether impossible to predict what he will do next. I can’t help but worry what further tricks he has up his sleeve.

What exactly will become of Yoon? The three special counsel probes tied to the insurrection, the scandals concerning his wife Kim Keon-hee and the investigation into the alleged pressure to undermine an investigation into the death of a young Marine corporal surnamed Chae are being conducted with one common goal in mind: Yoon. The probe into Kim will see Yoon be charged with violating the election laws, while the Marine death probe will see him charged with abusing his authority. 

If Yoon is found guilty of all the crimes he is being accused of so far, he will be stuck behind bars for several decades. Yoon brought this disastrous situation upon himself. If he had allowed special probe investigations into his wife and the Marine death investigation case while he was still in office, his presidential immunity would’ve allowed him to avoid indictment. 

Alas, there is no use in crying over spilled milk.

Yoon Suk-yeol’s never-ending fall from grace

Given the prevalent public sentiment and current political landscape, it will not be easy for Yoon to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors Chun Doo-hwan, Roh Tae-woo, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye and be pardoned, as the number of people who support or sympathize with him is rapidly dwindling.

The results of a national survey released on Thursday indicated that a whopping 71% of respondents were in favor of Yoon being taken into custody by authorities, compared to 23% against. The percentage of those who wished to see him behind bars was high in all age groups and all regions of South Korea, even in more conservative-leaning respondents over the age of 70 and residing in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. 

Among his loyal People Power Party, 29% of supporters were in favor of Yoon’s arrest, while 66% were against. That means that PPP supporters are composed mostly of the few people who oppose his arrest. I get the feeling that the future of the PPP will be incredibly bleak. (See the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission website for more details on the survey.)

Public opinion on the arrest of former President Park Geun-hye in March 2017 was not very different from what we are seeing in 2025. The results of a poll conducted by Realmeter released on March 22 of that year showed that 72.3% respondents were in favor of her being jailed, while only 25.1% opposed. 

Only those in their 60s and older were more prone to opposing her arrest, and when it came to regions, only respondents in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province were more opposed to her detainment. By political party, opposition was overwhelmingly higher among supporters of the Liberty Korea Party.

Park could at least count on support from the elderly and residents of the conservative stronghold of Daegu and North Gyeongsang province. But Yoon is in a much worse predicament. Both the conservative and progressive media are overwhelmingly in favor of his being detained again.

Even the staunchly conservative Munhwa Ilbo ran an editorial titled “Yoon, back behind bars, should stop passing the buck; special counsel should stay clear of bias” in its Thursday edition.

“Yoon only got what he deserved for refusing to admit what everybody knows and for shifting blame to his subordinates,” the newspaper said.

“Even though Yoon is accused of being the mastermind of the martial law declaration, he was seen walking his dog, at liberty while all his military commanders were behind bars. That behavior helped turn the public against him. Yoon needs to stop denying what’s obviously true and shifting responsibility to suffering individuals whose lives have been ruined. Yoon was wrong to refuse to apologize to the public at the moment he was being taken into custody.”

On Friday morning, editorials in all the major dailies agreed that it was right for Yoon to be put back into custody. One exception was the Chosun Ilbo, which didn’t print an editorial at all, perhaps having concluded there was little to say.

 
Presidents, despite their power, are still public servants

The sordid saga of Yoon Suk-yeol has made me feel, once again, that the Korean presidency is cursed.

Syngman Rhee, Korea’s first president, was driven into exile after the April Revolution of 1960 and passed away in Hawaii. Park Chung-hee was fatally shot by his hand-picked lieutenant. Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were incarcerated after leaving office.

The curse lingered even after Korea moved beyond the era of dictators and coups. Both Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung suffered the humiliation of seeing their own sons jailed while still in office. Roh Moo-hyun died by suicide after prosecutors launched an investigation following the end of his term. Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye were sent to prison, and that’s likely to be Yoon Suk-yeol’s fate as well. 

How do we explain the woeful fate of Korea’s presidents? To what can we attribute their behavior?

It mostly comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding. Presidents are elected officials whose authority derives from a sovereign nation. In other words, they’re servants — powerful, yes, but servants nonetheless.

And yet Korean presidents have a tendency to regard themselves as absolute monarchs. It’s hardly surprising that misfortune lies in store for a servant who harbors pretensions of being king.

A similar observation can be made about Korean voters. Even now, they cling to the fantasy that the right person as president can fix all their problems. That’s a testament to their relatively short experience with democracy.

Kim Jeong-hyeon, a professor at Jeonbuk National University, diagnosed the problems with Korea’s presidential system during a debate about constitutional and political reform held at the Institute for Future Policy Studies at Sungkyunkwan University on July 8.

“Under the powers granted by our Constitution, the president exercises great influence over not only the executive branch, but also the legislative and judicial branches. Currently, the president’s sway over membership of the Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, National Election Commission and Board of Audit and Inspection undermines their independence,” Kim said in his presentation, which was titled, “Fixing our presidential system through a constitutional amendment: why it’s needed and how to achieve it.”

“The president can appoint close allies to senior positions [in the presidential office] without confirmation hearings in the National Assembly. Those allies can then shape key aspects of government policy rather than cabinet members in the executive branch. The president’s aides in the presidential office, formerly the Blue House, dominate the Cabinet without any vetting by the National Assembly, which represents the public,” Kim said.

“The president exerts influence in Korean society through public-sector institutions and quasi-government organizations, where he has direct or indirect authority to appoint leaders, as well as through government-affiliated organizations with their nationwide networks. The government can also use its equity stake in privatized companies to influence hiring decisions,” the professor went on. 

“The president and his allies staff powerful bodies such as the public prosecutors, the police, the National Tax Service, the Financial Supervisory Service and the National Intelligence Service with loyal followers in an attempt to bend the state and various parts of society, in both the public and private sectors, to their will,” he said. 

Korea’s Constitution defines the president as being the head of state, who is supposed to “represent the state vis-a-vis foreign states.” It also gives the president authority over the executive branch in the following terms: “Executive power shall be vested in the executive branch headed by the president.”

The “imperial presidency” derives from the fact that the president is both head of state and head of the executive branch. It’s time that we divested the president of his status as head of state.

Yoon Suk-yeol misunderstood the job worse than any preceding president in Korean history. Yoon had spent his entire career in the prosecution service, an institution with an unhealthy culture in which everybody must move in lockstep with orders from on high. As such, he had zero understanding of either democracy or politics.

In the prosecution service, the prosecutor general has imperial power. Paradoxically enough, it is Yoon who shed light on the perils of an imperial presidency.

President Lee Jae-myung of South Korea speaks at his first press conference as president on July 3, 2025. (pool photo)

 
What’s needed for minimal constitutional reform

Yoon’s removal from office is an opportunity for us to end the imperial presidency once and for all. But that will require constitutional reform. Unfortunately, President Lee Jae-myung didn’t field any questions about constitutional reform during his press conference marking a month in office on July 3.

Lee made the following five pledges about constitutional reform during his presidential campaign: (1) to honor the spirit of the Gwangju Uprising, (2) to add more elements of direct democracy to shore up our democracy, (3) to expand and reinforce basic civil rights, (4) to institute a four-year presidency with up to two consecutive terms to strengthen political accountability and reinforce policy continuity and (5) devolve the president’s imperial authority by imposing tougher conditions for declaring martial law and vetoing bills passed by the National Assembly.

The constitutional reforms themselves are important, but so are the speed of the process and the way it’s handled.

So how should it be handled?

Lee is still in his honeymoon phase, when his influence is at its greatest. He needs to clearly express his determination to amend the Constitution, while letting the debate play out at the National Assembly.

Constitutional reform is only possible through consensus between the ruling and opposition parties. We need to keep reform to a minimum; in other words, we shouldn’t get too ambitious.

As soon as the ruling Democratic Party and opposition People Power Party hold conventions to elect their new leaders, they need to set up an ad hoc committee to initiate the discussion of constitutional reform. Then a national referendum on reform plans should be held during the local elections next year.

If the ruling and opposition parties can’t reach a consensus on all the areas where reform is needed, they can start with mutually acceptable reform initiatives and then proceed to the next stage after the local elections.

Whatever method is adopted, we need to amend our Constitution while Lee Jae-myung is in office. That’s how we can prevent another monster like Yoon from becoming president. And that’s how Lee can save the country, as well as himself.

By Seong Han-yong, senior political writer

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