The team representing the National Assembly in President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment trial said questioning of election fairness by the president, who himself was elected to office, would threaten the existence of a democratic republic.

At the trial’s eleventh and final hearing on Tuesday, Lee Kwang-beom, one of the lawyers on the team, said elections are indispensable in realizing representative democracy, which is the basis of a democratic republic.

The remarks come as Yoon and his defense team have alleged that evidence of election fraud constituted a national emergency that made it necessary for the president to declare martial law on December 3.

The lawyer on the Assembly’s team then referred to former presidents Rhee Syng-man, Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan, saying all those who sought dictatorship faced tragic endings.

He added that it was the South Korean people who made sacrifices to defend the democratic republic and the constitutional order during each and every historical crisis.

The Constitutional Court has allowed each side two hours to present its case during Tuesday’s hearing, after which Jung Chung-rae, chair of the Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee, and Yoon will testify without time restrictions.