In a ruling on Friday, the eight justices of South Korea’s
Constitutional Court rejected four of the five impeachment charges
against President Park Geun-hye. But they were unanimous on the fifth,
which was enough for her to have to go. By giving her best friend Choi
Soon-sil access to confidential documents and by forcing some
conglomerates to donate to Choi’s sports and cultural foundations, Park
had violated the Constitution, the justices said. “President Park
impaired the spirit of democracy and the rule of law,” Acting Chief
Justice Lee Jung-mi said, her court building ringed by riot police
behind a wall of police buses that held back supporters of the embattled
president. “Her violations of the Constitution and the law are a
betrayal of the people’s trust and cannot be tolerated.” [....]
The Koreans have become a very egalitarian people, thanks to a harsh
history. For centuries, they endured the rigors of a caste system under
which people could be punished for crimes like giving their children too
elevated-sounding names. In those days, bureaucratic elites passed the
day smoking, napping, writing poetry, and having people tortured. So
complete was the upheaval brought about by Japan’s colonial takeover in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the master builders of
modern South Korea, like its military dictators and the founders of
Hyundai, Daewoo, Samsung, and the others, came from groups once
considered scum—the soldier and the merchant. [...]
Compared to many countries, South Korea is fiercely democratic. But
South Koreans want to be better. After each election, the winner is
allowed to act like a short-term monarch and everyone blessed with a
connection looks for advantage. By the end of the fourth year, the
stench of favor is too much, and approval ratings plunge so low that the
outgoing president is considered a liability by his own party’s next
candidate. Of the five democratically elected presidents
before Park, one was jailed, another committed suicide to avoid a
prosecution investigation, and the other three saw their family members
go to jail. Now, Park is the first to actually be tossed out.
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