Yoon says particular forces troopers despatched to Nationwide Meeting on December 3 weren’t there to disable the legislature.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has rejected allegations at his impeachment trial that he ordered members of the navy to pull lawmakers out of the Nationwide Meeting throughout final month’s short-lived martial legislation.
Yoon, 64, advised the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Tuesday that he had labored in public service with “a agency dedication to free democracy”.
He was then moved to a navy hospital, the Yonhap information company reported.
The impeached president has been incarcerated since last week underneath separate felony fees of main an revolt by his try to enact martial legislation in early December, a transfer that shocked the nation and was overturned inside hours by the Nationwide Meeting.
Yoon mentioned on the listening to that particular forces troopers despatched to the legislature on December 3 weren’t there to disable the Nationwide Meeting or stop it from blocking his martial legislation as a result of he knew such an motion would have led to an indefensible disaster.
“On this nation, parliament and information media are much more highly effective than the president, in a far superior place,” he advised the courtroom.
If the courtroom guidelines in opposition to Yoon, he would lose the presidency, and an election could be known as inside 60 days.
His attorneys outlined arguments in defence of Yoon’s martial legislation declaration, saying it was meant to sound the alarm over abuses dedicated by the opposition Democratic Occasion.
They argued the opposition’s actions had paralysed the federal government and pushed the nation’s democratic and constitutional order to the brink of collapse.
“The decree was meant merely to ascertain the format of martial legislation and by no means meant to be executed nor was it doable to execute it due to the potential for battle with higher-level legal guidelines,” lawyer Cha Gi-hwan advised the courtroom.
Cha additionally denied testimony by navy commanders concerned within the martial legislation declaration who mentioned Yoon and his high aides ordered the arrests of some members of the legislature who had politically clashed with the president.
The Democratic Occasion, joined by minority events and likewise 12 members of Yoon’s Folks Energy Occasion, achieved a two-thirds majority vote to question Yoon on December 14. The Constitutional Court docket is now deciding whether or not to uphold his impeachment.
The attorneys prosecuting the case, who had been chosen by lawmakers, slammed the feedback made by Yoon and his attorneys as “largely contradictory, irrational and unclear, making them fully incomprehensible”.
“In the event that they proceed to evade accountability as they did at present, it should solely work in opposition to them within the impeachment trial and trigger even higher disappointment among the many public,” they mentioned on Tuesday.
Yoon stayed away from the primary two hearings final week, however the trial, which might final months, will proceed even when he’s absent.
