Seoul waits for the court and the country waits for the answer

The constitutional court in Seoul entered the final phase of its deliberations on the impeachment of the suspended president in late March, with the decision expected within the period that the constitution requires and the country’s attention fixed on the calendar. The court had heard the arguments, reviewed the records and conducted the sessions that the proceedings required; what remained was the deliberation, the internal process that the court conducts without the cameras, and the announcement that will come when the deliberation concludes. The case has been the country’s winter-long conversation, and the conversation has reached the point where the answer, whichever way it goes, will reshape the politics of the year.

The legal questions before the court are the ones that the lawyers have been arguing since the impeachment vote, and the arguments have been conducted in the careful language that the proceedings require. The central question is whether the declaration of martial law that triggered the impeachment constituted the grave violation of the constitutional order that the removal requires, and the question has been tested against the precedents, the records of the night, and the testimony that the court has heard; the legal commentary, in the weeks of the deliberation, has moved from the analysis of the facts to the analysis of the court’s likely reasoning, and the movement is the sign that the decision is near.

The political expectations around the decision are the part that the country’s two camps have been preparing for with the discipline that the situation demands. The supporters of the removal have organized around the expectation of the confirmation, with the rallies planned for the day of the decision and the language of the campaign already prepared; the supporters of the president have organized around the expectation of the restoration, with the legal arguments rehearsed and the political response mapped. The preparation on both sides is the recognition that the court’s decision will be the event around which the rest of the year’s politics will organize, and the recognition is the measure of the case’s weight.

The economic dimension of the waiting is the part that the coverage has begun to track with the markets’ attention. The currency and the equity market have moved with the polls on the decision’s likely direction, the institutions have postponed the major decisions until the political uncertainty resolves, and the business community has held its investments with the particular caution that the months of suspension have taught it; the resolution, the analysts note, will release the activity that the waiting has suppressed, whichever way the decision goes. The economic effects of the case are the ones that the politics will feel through the year, and the effects will begin on the day of the decision.

The day of the decision, when it arrives, will be the largest political event of the Korean year, and the event’s aftermath will be determined by the margin of the outcome. The removal would trigger the election within sixty days, the campaign that the country would run through the spring, the reorganisation of the parties and the realignment of the coalitions; the restoration would return the president to the office, the government to the work, and the country to the argument that the suspension had paused. The court’s deliberation is the winter’s last act, and the announcement will close the waiting that the country has conducted with such patience and open the politics of the year. Seoul waits for the court, and the court, in its own time, will answer, and the answer will be the beginning rather than the end of the country’s argument.