Anchor: The second hearing of President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment trial was held at the Constitutional Court on Thursday. Yoon's defense team argued that the impeachment motion passed by the opposition-led parliament was politically motivated, while the Assembly's team called for his expulsion, claiming that Yoon violated the Constitution and the Martial Law Act.
Choi You Sun reports.

Report: Legal teams representing President Yoon Suk Yeol and the National Assembly put forth their respective arguments during the second hearing of Yoon's impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court on Thursday.

Cho Dae-hyun, one of the lawyers on Yoon's defense team, claimed that the impeachment is not meant to defend the Constitution, but is in fact part of a political attempt to bring down the president who has been elected through direct voting.

Cho laid out four reasons why the request for the impeachment trial is inappropriate, such as a claim that putting the motion to a second plenary vote after it fell short of passage with attendance under the quorum of two-thirds of the 300-member Assembly goes against the Constitution.

The legal counsel took issue with the Assembly team's decision to remove insurrection charges as one of the reasons for the impeachment, stressing that if the motion did not include the charges, it would not have passed parliament with 204 votes in favor.

Cho claimed that the constitutionality of the December 3 martial law decree is not a subject of judicial judgment, and that the Assembly abused its impeachment authority as the short-lived martial law had already been lifted when it put the motion to a vote.

The Assembly's team, on the other hand, requested the court to unanimously and swiftly uphold the motion against Yoon for greatly threatening public security by declaring an unlawful martial law.

Jung Chung-rae, chair of the Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, accused Yoon of declaring martial law despite it not being wartime and that he did not follow proper procedures to go through the Cabinet in violation of the Constitution and the Martial Law Act.

He also accused the president of deploying troops to the National Election Commission(NEC), and alleged that he tried to apprehend and detain judicial figures, and that he staged a sit-in at his official residence in protest of a warrant to arrest him over the decree.

Kim Jin-han, one of the lawyers on the Assembly's team, claimed the decree was unconstitutional and that it was a declaration of dictatorship and an abolishment of the basic democratic order.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.