Yoon's lawyers vow constitutional challenge after Supreme Court upholds 7-year sentence

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol's legal team said Thursday it would challenge the constitutionality of his conviction through a constitutional complaint after the Supreme Court upheld a seven-year prison sentence on charges including obstruction of arrest.

In a statement released immediately after the ruling, Yoon's defense team expressed "deep regret" that the Supreme Court had closed the case "without sufficient deliberation," saying the outcome fell short of the rule of law and the warrant requirement principle that underpin the South Korean constitution.

The defense said the lower court's ruling had contained "serious legal problems that conflict with existing Supreme Court precedent and en banc rulings," and argued the case should have been referred to the full bench given the constitutional stakes involved. "There are numerous high-level constitutional issues that clearly caused legal confusion in the lower courts and have a profound impact on the structure of state power and the fundamental rights of citizens," the statement said. "Ensuring uniform interpretation of the law and securing predictability in judicial decisions is the inherent duty of the Supreme Court as the court of last resort," it added.

The defense went further, saying the Supreme Court's decision to dismiss the appeal "even more hastily than an ordinary case, skipping even en banc deliberation, amounts in effect to an abdication of its function as the highest court of the judiciary — and is nothing other than the politicization of justice." It said the ruling "seriously infringed on the defendant's right to a fair trial."

The defense team said it planned to "contest the unconstitutionality of this ruling through constitutional adjudication procedures, including a constitutional complaint, in order to protect the fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution," and pledged to pursue all available legal avenues "faithfully and responsibly within the bounds of the law and the constitution."

Yoo Jeong-hwa, one of Yoon's defense attorneys, told reporters after the ruling that recognizing a search of premises not specified in the search warrant as lawful "is a ruling that hollows out the warrant requirement principle." She said the defense was "reviewing a constitutional complaint."

The Supreme Court's Third Division, presided over by Justice Lee Suk-yeon, convened Thursday afternoon in Courtroom No. 1 and upheld the seven-year sentence handed down by the lower court against Yoon on charges including obstruction of official duties and abuse of authority.

The panel dismissed appeals from both Yoon's defense and the insurrection special prosecutor's team led by Special Prosecutor Jo Eun-seok, saying the lower court's judgment showed "no error in violating the rules of logic and experience beyond the limits of free evaluation of evidence, nor any misapplication of the law regarding the establishment of the crimes."

Thursday's ruling marked the Supreme Court's first decision on Yoon's case, coming one year and seven months — 583 days — after the Dec. 3, 2024, emergency martial law crisis.

Yoon faces charges of using the Presidential Security Service last January to block the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials from executing an arrest warrant against him during the investigation into the emergency martial law crisis.

He was also indicted on charges of convening only some Cabinet members before the Dec. 3 emergency martial law declaration, thereby obstructing the remaining ministers from exercising their constitutional right to deliberate on the measure. Additional charges include fabricating and then destroying the martial law proclamation after it was lifted, deleting encrypted phone records belonging to military commanders who participated in the martial law — including former Defense Counterintelligence Command chief Yeo In-hyeong — and drafting and disseminating false information about the martial law to foreign media outlets.

The first trial, held last January, sentenced Yoon to five years in prison. The appeals court, however, found him guilty on counts the first court had acquitted him of and increased the sentence to seven years in April.

The appeals court found that two Cabinet ministers who received notice of the meeting at a time when they could not attend had also been deprived of their deliberation rights — a finding that went beyond the first court, which had recognized only the infringement of rights of seven ministers who received no notice at all. The appeals court also convicted Yoon on the charge of disseminating false information to foreign media, reversing the first court's acquittal on that count. The special prosecutor's team had sought a 10-year sentence at both the first and second trials.

Yoon has faced a total of eight trials since the Dec. 3 emergency martial law crisis. Beyond Thursday's case, seven proceedings remain ongoing: the insurrection ringleader case, the general treason case, the perjury case, the case involving alleged pressure to obstruct the investigation into the death of Marine Cpl. Chae Sang-byeong, the case involving alleged harboring of former Defense Minister Lee Jong-seop, the case related to the Myung Tae-kyun political influence scandal, and the case involving alleged false statements during the 2022 presidential election.