The Political Role of Courts in the Trials of South Korea’s 2016-2017 Impeachment Scandal

Résumé En

"The respondent is removed from the office of President." So did the Constitutional Court of Korea conclude the ruling that its judges rendered on March 10, 2017, terminating the term of Park Geun-hye (Pak Kŭn-hye) a year before its supposed ending. The following day, the last of twenty mass protest rallies held every Saturday since October 2016 to demand Park’s ousting took place to celebrate the so-called candlelight movement’s (ch’otpuljiphoe) victory. To the members and observers of this movement symbolized by its crowds of light-holding participants, the Constitutional Court’s verdict meant the institutional consecration of the popular struggle to defend South Korea’s democratic order against the president’s abusive and corrupt use of her power. A close reading of the impeachment ruling, however, reveals a number of gaps between the upholders of democracy in the streets – a large and diverse coalition of citizens – and the guardians of its order on the bench – usually nine but in this case eight magistrates. While having obtained from the Constitutional Court what it fought for, the candlelight movement was indeed obliterated from the ruling. This obliteration operated not only lexically – the candlelight demonstrations being never mentioned or acknowledged in the judgment – but also substantially – several of the anti-Park movement’s grievances and demands appearing excluded from the text’s scope and content. To put it differently, the court “blew out the candle” of citizens’ mobilization in a double direction, realizing their main wish – removing Park Geun-hye from office – while denying having fulfilled what they wanted.