The Constitutional Court of Korea formally opened South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment trial on Tuesday, despite the absence of Park, whose lawyers said she was unlikely to attend any of the proceedings.
The nine-member court has until June to decide whether Park, whose powers have been suspended since the South Korean National Assembly voted on Dec. 9 to impeach her over a corruption scandal, will be reinstated or removed from office.
The court, which had held three preliminary hearings on Park’s impeachment, convened in full for the first time on Tuesday, with the intent of inviting her to respond to the National Assembly’s charges and answer questions, but she did not appear and the hearing was adjourned after nine minutes.
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A lawyer for the president, Lee Joong-hwan, said after the hearing that Park would make her case through her attorneys.
“She won’t appear in court unless there is an exceptionally special reason to do so,” Lee said.
By law, Park cannot be compelled to testify. If she declines to appear for a second time, the court can proceed without her.
Chief Justice Park Han-chul, who is not related to the president, said that the next hearing would be held today and that oral arguments would begin regardless.
Four former or current South Korean presidential aides have also been asked to testify today.
“We recognize the weighty significance this case has in our nation’s constitutional order,” the chief justice said. “We will do our best to ensure an utterly fair and appropriate trial.”
Park Geun-hye has been accused of conspiring with a longtime friend and confidante, Choi Soon-sil, to extort US$69 million from South Korean businesses. In its impeachment motion, the National Assembly characterized the money as bribes. The legislature also accused her of undermining freedom of the press by cracking down on her critics and of shirking her duty to protect citizens’ lives by neglecting to respond efficiently to a ferry disaster in 2014 that killed more than 300 people.
No South Korean president has been forced out of office through impeachment.
The National Assembly voted in 2004 to impeach then-South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun, but the Constitutional Court reinstated him, ruling that his violations of election law were too minor to justify ending his presidency.
Roh did not attend the court’s hearings on his impeachment.
The charges against Park Geun-hye are much more serious than those Roh faced, and they have infuriated the public.
Large crowds have gathered in central Seoul for the past 10 consecutive Saturdays demanding an end to her presidency.
Small groups of protesters gathered on Tuesday outside the Constitutional Court, some calling for Park’s ouster and others supporting her.
After Choi was arrested on extortion charges in November last year, Park promised to cooperate with prosecutors investigating the scandal, but she later refused to be questioned by them, calling them politically biased.
Park cannot be indicted while in office, but the prosecutors’ indictment of Choi names her as an accomplice.
While refusing to testify or be questioned, Park has vehemently asserted her innocence in other forums.
She did so again on Sunday, in a meeting with South Korean reporters at the presidential Blue House, arguing that the allegations against her had been fabricated.
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