What Yoon’s life sentence means for South Korean democracy

South China Morning Post · Feb 26, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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It began with a late-night declaration of martial law and has ended, for now, with a gavel. In the 443 days between those two moments, South Korea’s democracy was tested in ways most countries never experience.Citizens formed human chains to block troops from reaching the National Assembly. Lawmakers rushed through corridors in the dead of night to kill the martial law decree by vote. The Constitutional Court upheld a president’s impeachment.Millions took to the streets in protest. A new president was elected. And last Thursday, Seoul Central District Court delivered its verdict: a life sentence for the instigator of the chaos, former leader Yoon Suk-yeol.Yet rather than closing one of the most turbulent chapters in South Korea’s modern political history, the ruling has cracked open another.Appeals are already moving through the courts, judicial reform is back on the agenda and a deeply divided public is more partisan than ever.A Yoon supporter reacts following a guilty verdict during the sentencing trial in his insurrection case on February 19. Photo: ReutersA ‘sympathetic’ ruling?The reaction to Thursday’s ruling was as swift as it was split. On social media, Yoon’s supporters dismissed the case as politically motivated, pointing the finger of blame at current President Lee Jae Myung’s ruling Democratic Party.