Column "It Was Messaging-Based Martial Law"... The Sophistry of a Constitutional Destroyer Who Ultimately Refused to Apologize

The appellate arguments in the case of a "ringleader of rebellion (insurrection)" in which the highest sovereign who should have protected the Constitution wielded state power to shake the constitutional order have finally concluded. The special prosecution team, pursuing accountability for the damage to national stability and the foundation of democracy, sought "capital punishment" once again in the appellate proceedings following the first trial. The appellate court's final ruling on defendant former President Yoon Suk-yeol will be delivered on January 26 next year.

However, what defendant Yoon Suk-yeol presented before the nation in his final statement was neither introspection nor an apology. In his final statement on the 5th, he reiterated claims of so-called "messaging-based martial law," saying, "I attempted to inform the sovereign people of constitutional collapse and national paralysis and to awaken them." All that filled the courtroom was sophistry tinged with faint amusement and self-serving logic to evade responsibility.

The sophistry of "messaging-based martial law" meant to obscure the suspension of the Constitution and physical intrusion

Former President Yoon insisted that the proclamation of emergency martial law was "messaging-based martial law" meant to inform the public of the crisis of national paralysis, and was "an appeal to urge public awakening." However, how could acts of insurrection—the deployment of armed military troops to the National Assembly and the attempted physical incapacitation of constitutional institutions—be packaged as mere "messaging to the public"?

The argument that it was "minimal troop deployment for order maintenance and security inspection" also collapses before the undeniable fact that armed martial law troops jumped over the National Assembly fence and smashed windows to force their way in.

Distorting history by packaging "failed rebellion" as "voluntary acceptance"

Even more deplorable is the defendant's logic that "because the National Assembly's political control was accepted, the crime of rebellion is not established." The emergency martial law fell short only due to the National Assembly's exercise of its authority to revoke martial law and the life-or-death resistance of citizens and lawmakers.

To portray a failed rebellion—merely because circumstances did not go as planned—as if the defendant voluntarily accepted the National Assembly's power of control is a clear mockery of democratic procedure and citizen resistance.

Sentencing on January 26 next year: the time for judicial punishment to restore the dignity of rule of law

The sight of a former prosecutor general and the highest sovereign attempting to deny the prerequisites for emergency martial law as prescribed by the Constitution and laws, and seeking to justify crimes through post-hoc sophistry, evokes deep frustration and anger. History clearly remembers the negative repercussions that unprincipled leniency toward past rebellious forces left in our society.

The final statement that ultimately refused to apologize transcends the right to reasonable defense in court—it is a negation of constitutional history itself. On January 26 next year, the judiciary must judge the defendant, who disturbed the constitutional order and mocked the gravity of rule of law, not with carefully packaged rhetoric but with firm and rigorous legal standards. That alone is the only way to put an end to the attempt to destroy the Constitution and to restore the dignity of rule of law.