[opinion] Is South Korea Still a Democracy ?

Is South Korea Still a Democracy?

The Rule of Law Cannot Become a Political Weapon

International observers have described South Korea’s democracy as being in serious retreat following President Yoon Suk-yeol’s declaration of martial law. That assessment is understandable. From inside Korea, however, the situation looks more complicated. South Korea has not ceased to be a democracy, but it has reached a moment when its democratic institutions must prove that they can restrain political power.

The rule of law is not simply a matter of following procedures. It means that the same principles must apply to everyone, including those who once exercised enormous influence over the legal system.

Since December 2024, a series of events has tested that principle. On December 3, President Yoon declared martial law without a convincing justification, placing the country’s constitutional order under extraordinary strain. What followed did little to restore public confidence.

As the impeachment process and criminal proceedings unfolded, a Seoul Central District Court judge cancelled Yoon’s detention. Prosecutors then decided not to appeal the ruling. Whatever the technical grounds for those decisions may have been, the sequence of events left many Koreans with the impression that legal rules could be interpreted differently depending on the political position of the person involved.

That perception is dangerous. Courts and prosecutors cannot maintain public trust if their decisions appear to be shaped by political calculation. The law must protect citizens from arbitrary power. It must never become an instrument through which power protects itself.

President Yoon built much of his early political identity around his supposed commitment to the rule of law. Yet when allegations involving people close to him emerged, his administration was accused of obstructing investigations and putting pressure on the media. A government cannot credibly claim to defend the rule of law while using state institutions for its own political convenience. The anger and disappointment felt by many Koreans did not arise without reason.

Yoon’s attitude toward the humanities also deserves attention. In a 2021 speech at Andong National University, he remarked that the humanities could be studied alongside engineering or the natural sciences. Taken by itself, one statement cannot define a person’s entire legal philosophy. It nevertheless reflects a broader tendency to treat law mainly as a technical discipline.

Law is more than the interpretation of statutes and precedents. It is inseparable from questions of justice, ethics, human dignity and the proper limits of state power. When legal professionals lose sight of those questions, even technically defensible decisions can produce deeply unjust results.

Legal Education Must Change

During his impeachment trial in February 2025, President Yoon attempted to justify the declaration of martial law without presenting objective evidence sufficient to support such an extraordinary measure. That a former prosecutor-general with more than 30 years of legal experience could interpret the Constitution and the law in this way points to a problem deeper than one individual.

It reveals an ethical weakness within Korea’s legal culture.

Korean legal education has long placed great weight on statutes, precedents, examinations and courtroom practice. These are essential parts of professional training. But technical competence alone does not produce lawyers who understand when power has exceeded its legitimate limits.

Leading law schools in other countries generally treat professional responsibility as a core part of legal education. Harvard Law School requires students to study professional responsibility, while German legal education has traditionally given greater attention to legal philosophy, legal history and the relationship between law and society. South Korean law schools, by comparison, have increasingly concentrated on examination preparation and practical legal skills.

The result is a system that can produce highly skilled legal technicians without necessarily producing independent-minded guardians of justice.

Judges, prosecutors and lawyers are not merely people who know how to apply legal provisions. They exercise powers that can affect a person’s liberty, reputation and life. They must therefore be able to ask not only whether an action is legally possible, but also whether it is just, proportionate and consistent with the constitutional order.

Legal education must give future lawyers the intellectual and moral resources to make those judgments. Ethics, philosophy, history and the humanities should not be treated as optional decoration. They are essential to understanding what the law is ultimately for.

Rebuilding Trust in the Rule of Law

The Republic of Korea was established in 1948, but democratic government did not develop in a continuous or straightforward way. The country endured war, national division and decades of authoritarian rule before the democratic transition of 1987.

Measured from that turning point, South Korea has had less than four decades to consolidate its democratic institutions. Its democracy has achieved much, but it is not yet beyond danger.

The present crisis forces Koreans to confront a difficult question. Will the country rebuild a legal system that citizens can trust, or will it accept a system in which the meaning of the law changes according to political circumstances?

Reform must begin with legal education, but it cannot end there. Judicial independence must be strengthened, prosecutors must be protected from political pressure, and legal professionals must be held to higher standards of ethical responsibility. Decisions by courts and prosecutors should also be explained with enough clarity and consistency to withstand public scrutiny.

Institutional independence does not mean freedom from accountability. On the contrary, the greater the authority exercised by a legal institution, the more openly and convincingly it must justify its decisions.

A constitutional crisis should never be dismissed as a temporary political disturbance. It is a warning that the safeguards of democracy may not be as secure as people assumed.

The rule of law that South Korea needs is not one of empty formalism. It must be capable of defending democracy, protecting human rights and restraining those who hold power. Without those purposes, legal procedure becomes little more than a shell.

South Korean democracy has clearly suffered a setback, but retreat does not have to become collapse. Korean citizens have repeatedly shown that they are capable of defending democracy when its foundations are threatened. They overcame colonial rule, war and authoritarian government, and built both a modern economy and a democratic society within a remarkably short period.

The country’s recovery will not come from confidence alone. It will require honest reflection, institutional reform and a legal profession willing to place justice above political loyalty.

The Korean people are asking for a more complete democracy. Their history gives us reason to believe that they can achieve it.

Memorial Society

Sung-won Yoo , Representative