▲ Cho Eun-seok, the special counsel for the insurrection, and Kwon Chang-young, the head of the second comprehensive special counsel team
The special counsel team led by Cho Eun-seok investigating the December 3 emergency martial law and the second comprehensive special counsel team led by Kwon Chang-young have clashed once again over the timing of when the insurrection officially ended.
Citing Supreme Court precedents, the insurrection special counsel team reaffirmed its stance that the insurrection concluded on December 4, 2024, when the lifting of martial law was publicly announced. In doing so, it publicly countered the comprehensive special counsel team's earlier determination that set the end of the insurrection on December 14.
In a press notice today (August 12), the insurrection special counsel team stated, "We are conducting investigations, filing indictments, and maintaining prosecutions based on the premise that the December 3 insurrection ended on December 4, 2024, when former President Yoon announced the lifting of the emergency martial law."
As the basis for this determination, the insurrection special counsel team cited the Supreme Court en banc rulings on the December 12 and May 17 incidents.
In its 1997 ruling, the Supreme Court determined that the nationwide expansion of emergency martial law on May 17, 1980, itself constituted a riot—an essential element of the crime of insurrection—and that its coercive and riotous effects persisted unless martial law was lifted.
Consequently, it viewed a series of actions—such as preventive detentions and restrictions on political activities carried out from around the nationwide expansion of martial law until its lifting—as a single act of insurrection, concluding that the insurrection ended on January 24, 1981, when martial law was actually lifted.
The court held that even after Chun Doo-hwan assumed the presidency in August 1980 and the Constitution of the Fifth Republic was amended in October of the same year, seizing state power, the acts of insurrection did not cease as long as emergency martial law remained in effect.
It rejected the lower court's ruling which held that the insurrection continued until the June 29 Declaration in 1987, on the grounds that citizens' resistance and its suppression continued even after martial law was lifted.
In light of this established jurisprudence, the insurrection special counsel team explained that the December 3 emergency martial law must also be regarded as having ended at the time the lifting of martial law was officially announced.
The team stated, "This case involves a president who had already been elected through an election and held state power, yet attempted to subvert the constitutional order by using emergency martial law as a tool." It added, "When the military and police mobilized under the martial law proclamation were withdrawn and the lifting of emergency martial law was announced, the acts aimed at realizing the purpose of subverting the constitutional order through emergency martial law were halted."
"It is difficult to view the objective of subverting the constitutional order as having continued thereafter, and the coercive and riotous effects inherent in emergency martial law itself also dissipated," the team emphasized. "Therefore, viewing the time when martial law was lifted as the point when the series of insurrection acts concluded aligns with the legal principles established by Supreme Court precedent."
The stance of the insurrection special counsel team stands in direct opposition to the legal interpretation presented yesterday (August 11) by the comprehensive special counsel team when it indicted Lee Eun-woo, former head of the Korea Policy Broadcasting Service (KTV), on charges of instigating an insurrection.
The comprehensive special counsel team indicted Lee without detention on the grounds that, between December 3 and December 13, 2024, he repeatedly broadcasted information asserting the legitimacy of the emergency martial law and blocked information critical of it through KTV news specials and ticker news, thereby instigating the insurrection.
In this process, the comprehensive special counsel team determined that the December 3 insurrection did not end on December 4, the day martial law was lifted, but continued until December 14, when the National Assembly's impeachment motion against former President Yoon was passed and his presidential duties were suspended.
The rationale was that former President Yoon's objective of subverting the constitutional order could not be seen as having completely vanished even after the lifting of martial law, and that the insurrection persisted until his presidential duties were suspended, making it impossible for him to pursue it further.
As the two special counsel teams investigating the same case have arrived at different conclusions regarding the end date of the insurrection with a ten-day gap, legal battles surrounding this issue are expected to unfold in upcoming trials related to the cases.
The comprehensive special counsel team has previously come into conflict with the insurrection special counsel team by reaching conclusions that differed from the latter's previous investigations and dispositions, marking the starting point of friction between them.
In addition to publicly criticizing the comprehensive team for not investigating lawmakers of the People Power Party regarding suspicions of obstructing the arrest of former President Yoon, the comprehensive team also booked former First Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service Hong Jang-won and former Army Special Warfare Commander Kwak Jong-keun—who had acted as whistleblowers—as suspects.
Recently, the two teams also engaged in a nerve war over whether to transfer the Anti-Graft Act violation case involving former Justice Minister Park Sung-je, tied to former President Yoon's spouse Kim Keon-hee.
Amid these moves by the comprehensive special counsel team, the National Assembly previously amended the Comprehensive Special Counsel Act to include a provision stipulating that matters concerning investigations and indictments where decisions of the three special counsels could be overturned or affect the maintenance of prosecution must be consulted with the existing special counsel side.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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