Last time I checked, access to the national assembly palace was being blocked : https://bsky.app/profile/sung-il-kim.com/post/3lcfskluuwc26

Any idea how and why it was unblocked ? Anyone with more context ?

EDIT: This is the first I cannot think of any reason for getting a downvote... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The police kept the protesters out, but eventually let in most members of the national assembly and their staff after checking their ID.

Martial law is about using the military to control civilian activities. The police are civilian. Their order is to maintain peace, not to interfere with people who have legitimate business at the facility. If Yoon really wanted to preempt the national assembly, he should have sent in the military earlier.

It appears that the South Korean constitution has a few provisions relating to legislative immunity:

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Article 44

1. During the sessions of the National Assembly, no member of the National Assembly shall be arrested or detained without the consent of the National Assembly except in case of flagrante delicto.

2. In case of apprehension or detention of a member of the National Assembly prior to the opening of a session, such member shall be released during the session upon the request of the National Assembly, except in case of flagrante delicto.

Article 45

No member of the National Assembly shall be held responsible outside the National Assembly for opinions officially expressed or votes cast in the Assembly.

---

(from https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Republic_of_K... linked elsewhere in this thread; "flagrante delicto" is a legal term of art for "being caught in the act". These provisions are similar to ones found in Article I section 6 of the US constitution.).

There are reports and photos of actual troops in the building, and reports and photos of people who definitely don't look like civilian police leaving the building. I think the bigger problem with attempting to preempt the national assembly is that the troops didn't particularly want to interfere with people that had legitimate business at the assembly either.

Yeah, a few helicopters carrying troops touched down in the national assembly, but it seems they arrived too late and only waved their guns around half-heartedly. I think by the time they arrived, it was already clear which way the wind was blowing. They left soon after the vote took place.

There were videos of Assemblymen jumping the fence around the building, so it looks like the police were not letting assembly members enter.

The blockade was rather inconsistent. Some entered through the gate, some jumped the fence. Some didn't make it through at all. But If the police really wanted to block the lawmakers from gathering, they would have guarded the fence as well. The police was clearly preoccupied with controlling the protesters instead.

Despite the National Assembly's resolution to end martial law, the military stated that it would remain in effect until ended by the president

>Martial law will remain until the president lifts martial law"...Armored vehicles also seen in the city center

https://m.ytn.co.kr/news_view.php?s_mcd=0101&key=20241204013...

Yoon has now announced the lifting of martial law, and the military has withdrawn, according to BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn38321180et?post=asset%3A8353...

Seems like everybody's staking out all-in positions here. Those military officials are certainly aware of what generally happens to perpetrators of failed coups.

> Those military officials are certainly aware of what generally happens to perpetrators of failed coups.

They're following the law. The Constitution obligates the President to lift martial law after the National Assembly nullifies it.

The question is then what the Constitution says about a president who fails to execute his constitutional obligations, such as lifting martial law once it is nullified. Is there an impeachment process for a constitutional violations or a faster solution.

I don't even know if there is a faster route than impeachment in the US system.

> Is there an impeachment process for a constitutional violations

There's an impeachment process. Creating a separate, faster one for constitutional violations is just inviting trouble.

If I recall correctly, I thought there was some legal provision in the US for the military to disobey unconstitutional orders. If it doesn't exist de jure, I suppose it always exists de facto, both in the US and elsewhere.

I think it is always interesting when the curtain gets pulled back to reveal how all of our political systems and norms simply overlay the fact that power is the ultimate law of the land.

As a retired military officer, disobeying illegal orders is expected. An order to commit a war crime is itself a crime, not a lawful order.

The sticky part comes in when the venue for determining the legality of the order often then becomes one's own court-martial and resulting appeals. I'm not sure how much case law there is on the subject.

This is further complicated by a history (yes, in the US) of not just failing to prosecute obvious war criminals, and of pardoning many who do somehow manage to get convicted, but wide swaths of the population treating them as heroes. There are recent examples, but look at how we treated those with the most direct culpability for the My Lai massacre, and further, how the guy who took direct action to stop it got treated—this stuff goes back quite a bit, we pretty consistently don't just tolerate but coddle war criminals, so... risk disobeying the illegal order and maybe get treated like a villain, or become an actual villain but good odds you get hero treatment?

The law is arguably not what's written, but what actually happens, and analyzed that way our laws about war crime are complicated.

The recent SCOTUS decision in the US will make this endlessly complicated. If the illegal order is deemed an official act, SCOTUS has said POTUS has liability. So does the military carry out an illegal act (which can’t be illegal), or refuse and face charges of insubordination?

Part of what makes this so obviously a fucked-up decision is that now some poor E-3 can easily be prosecuted for egregiously-illegal horse-shit while the "buck stops here" fucking President who ordered it is untouchable.

Like, if it's not plainly an awful decision on its face (and god, it so very is) then the fact that just about every plausible application of it looks something like that, as far as who can and cannot be held responsible for their actions, should demonstrate that the decision is, in the highest ideal of what it means to be American, deeply un-American.

If the President directly orders the military to arrest politicians and citizens, that is clearly illegal.

The stumbling block is if the President invokes the Insurrection Act. Which is a bit of a gray area.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act_of_1807

> I thought there was some legal provision in the US for the military to disobey unconstitutional orders

It's less a legal provision than a consequence of humans being the interface of the law. So while there is, in theory, a duty to disobey, there is also a presumption of lawfulness of orders [1][2].

[1] https://ucmjdefense.com/resources/military-offenses/the-lawf...

[2] https://warontherocks.com/2017/07/when-can-a-soldier-disobey...

Rule 916(d) in the Manual for Courts-Martial, quoted in your second source, is really the pull quote here:

> It is a defense to any offense that the accused was acting pursuant to orders unless the accused knew the orders to be unlawful or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the orders to be unlawful.

So for those non-military reading, while it's almost always a bad idea to try to sea-lawyer your way out (though some court challenges have worked), you also are expected to use "ordinary sense and understanding" to reject orders like "go massacre those clearly unarmed noncombatants." But if it's not as cartoonishly obvious as that, there's a good chance you will have to defend your actions at a court-martial, and the legality of the order will be down to the interpretation of the presiding military judge and appellate courts.

But that covers only the case where the accused obeyed an unlawful order. It does NOT cover the case where the accused REFUSED an unlawful order.

Refusing an ambiguously-lawful order would, under that source, trigger a prosecution or nonjudicial punishment under UCMJ Article 92 - Failure to obey a lawful order or general order. And it would need to be determined at trial and/or on appeal whether the order was lawful, because Article 92 requires the Government to plead/prove four things:

- That a member of the armed forces issued a certain lawful order;

- That the accused had knowledge of the order; and

- That the accused had a duty to obey the order; and

- That the accused failed to obey the order.

If the order is deemed unlawful by the military judge or appellate court, the case must be dismissed, because the Government has failed to allege an offense.

Ah, that clarifies things. Thanks!

And always remember the old quote: militar justice is to justice as militar music is to music

In the oath officer's swear, it is exclusively to the Constitution - with no mention of anything but - swearing to protect against enemies foreign and domestic.

Interestingly the oath for enlisted does include a section on obeying the President, subject to the military Code.

There was a YouTube video from Ward Carroll, a "veteran F-14 Tomcat radar intercept officer, writer, and military commentator", that ultimately deals with this question, though it does so only after establishing a fair amount of background detail.

And while on the face of it, this video would appear to jump headlong into a hot button political discussion... it's actually very calm, collected, and appears to be striving to provide an objective analysis from a military perspective about just these issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEZ3JSOvY2s

This article addresses the issue. The stumbling block is something called the Insurrection Act.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/07/12/what-happens-...

they dropped the lingo but didn't do the homework

it's interesting that very few people would admit this, that society is founded upon violence.

See "Debt, the first 5000 years" by Graeber.

Debt exists because of (the threat of) violence. Money exists because of debt (.. is in fact debt). Modern society is based on our monetary system.

it's the book that cemented my hunch.

Violence is a big part of it, but I used the word power specifically because I think it is more accurate.

Violence is a major form of power, but so are utility and persuasion.

You can persuade or pay people to things that you can't threaten or force them into.

> You can persuade or pay people to things that you can't threaten or force them into.

Any examples? Beyond immaterial things like respect/love/etc?

Sure. One example is when you have inferior force. You cant force someone to do something with threats, but you can pay them to do something.

Another example is when the cost of violence is high. If have two people with guns, or MAD scenarios, violence isnt an effective way to get what you want, so payment can be better.

The last example and simplest is if you need a service and the other party simply chooses destruction over acquiescence to violence. If a doctor would rather die than be forced to treat you, your violence is useless, and payment would be much better.

I tried to give simple human level examples, but they can also be scaled up to groups and states.

These are all interesting examples, but they support the point rather than deny it. If you have an inferior force, usually you get invaded (see Ukraine). Even paying can still be done to support your opposition until they control the government (see banana republics). Either way, you no longer hold the monopoly on violence, somebody else does.

Guns and MAD are exactly the kind of violence society is founded upon. Ultimately you can't just stop paying tax or start driving illegal vehicles, because the state (usually) has a bigger gun than you. (In the case where it doesn't, you end up with something like Somalia or the mafia). MAD is the ultimate gun, not the absence of gun.

A doctor might be willing to die, but every man has a price he is not willing to pay - whether that's his child or a random child you pick off the street and make violent threats towards.

Payment is just a disguise and a convenience - the underlying order is still based on violence.

We just have to agree to disagree then. I think a huge part of the structure is violence, but not all of it. The fact that violence exist and is important does not negate the rest.

People with inferior violence and still have powers available.

This is obvious because two people can still conduct business even if they have guns pointed at each other's head. Two people can conduct business if neither of them have guns and a third party is a gun at both of their heads.

This means that there are powers beyond violence that can be used to influence others.

>I don't even know if there is a faster route than impeachment in the US system.

There's section 4 of the 25th amendment, but it is untested.

The declaration of martial law was already unconstitutional in the part that forbids something that is explicitly mentioned in the constitution (a meeting of the Parliament to request that the president lift the martial law). Which is probably why the members of the Parliament only has minor obstacles towards having their meeting.

As the saying goes- If you aim for the king, you better not miss

Which means that the president is ignoring the constitution. And so is the military.

Very much not good...

I’m not sure the military is ignoring the constitution. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they’re supposed to follow the president’s orders.

Militaries in liberal democracies should protect the constitution, even if that means disobeying the president.

The thing is, if you're planning a coup with military backing, you don't do it when your most rule-abiding, law-respecting general is in town. You send that guy to guard the Alaskan border or whatever, and instead recruit a general who's a maverick rules-breaker and who gets on well with you personally.

So the military should respect the constitution, but when it comes to a coup you'll get whichever general respects the constitution the least.

I don't know much about coups actually work, but a general does not make an army.

A general that wants to stage a coup seems like they must still require the support of the troops.

Speaking anecdotally, every unit I've been in not a single man would follow the questionably illegal orders of any general unless they had full respect and confidence in that general, and typically the troops only have full respect and confidence in a subset of their immediate leaders (which are not typically generals). I guarantee a LARGE percentage of troops would treat the highest ranking general as an enemy combatant if their direct (low ranking) leaders who they respected convinced them that the general's orders were illegal or against their oaths. Soldiers don't die for generals, they die for each other, and "each other" is usually enlisted or low-ish ranking officers (maybe captain and below in the US). A professional and disciplined soldier will charge a hill risking certain death on the orders of a general, but a professional and disciplined soldier will not stage a coup on the orders of a general alone.

I agree that soldiers don't stage a coup on the orders of a general alone.

You need a general with likeminded officers, and a convincing excuse for the rank and file to go along with their officer's orders.

Something like "the election was stolen, the winners weren't legitimately elected, we've got to defend our country". It doesn't need to survive detailed scrutiny, a few hours is long enough for the major scrutineers to accidentally fall out of windows.

I'm not an expert on South Korean constitutional law. But from the parts that others have quoted here, if the legislature declares an end to the martial law, that's the end of the martial law. The military should not then be obeying the president's orders to impose martial law, because the martial law is over.

In the US, military officers take their oaths to obey the constitution, not the president. I don't know if that's true in South Korea.

The Korean Constitution says that once the legislature declares an end to martial law, the President "shall comply". The military has to obey the President's orders until that time though, and 'shall comply' has two flaws: (a) it doesn't contemplate what happens if he doesn't and (b) it contemplates time passing, but doesn't specify the duration. These flaws are moot, because the President has complied.

Can't say about South Korea, but plenty of militaries, including in the USA, are obligated to reject unconstitutional orders.

Said military was also filmed live with empty pistols and training magazines on chest rigs, so it was clear that they were never on the President's side. SK has mandatory military conscription and so implication of waving around scary but empty guns was immediately understood and shared by local citizens.

The military are technically correct here.

As the constitution is written, the nullification vote doesn't directly end martial law. It simply binds the president to withdraw martial law.

In hindsight, that might be a slight flaw, there doesn't seem to be any time limit or mechanism for what happens if the president doesn't. I'm not sure their constitution was written with an autocoup in mind.

In the end it wasn't an issue. The President did eventually withdraw martial law, I wonder what pressure was put on him to do so. And by who.

The President has said he will stand down martial law through the cabinet meeting.

My understanding is that the parliamentary vote itself is not binding, but requires essentially a rubber stamp by the cabinet. They can decline to do so and the President wouldn't be legally required to stand down. Regardless, 190-0 is an overwhelming statement and if I was represented by one of the 110 absent members I would have a lot of very serious questions for them.

This is now done, the cabinet met and lifted the martial law (despite the time being about 5 in the morning).

No, the constitution mandates the president to stand down. The cabinet approval is just a procedural one to make the boundary clear between authorities. The supreme court's interpretation is that if they don't approve it within a reasonable time, the resolution will automatically take effect regardless of the cabinet.

It is my understanding that some members of parliament were having trouble making it in. It is also likely that they took the vote as soon as enough members were present to be legal, instead of waiting any longer for all the members of parliament to arrive. Of course, some may have taken their time in order to avoid voting on it.