South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Friday ruled unanimously to remove President Park Geun-hye from office, the capstone of a sweeping corruption scandal that has engulfed the country for months.

“Hereby, in a unanimous decision, the court issues the verdict: the court rules to expel President Park Geun-hye,” acting Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi said in a nationally televised ruling.

With the decision, which is final and unchangeable, Park has become the nation’s first democratically elected leader to be ousted by impeachment. The nation now must hold a presidential election within 60 days, making it likely to fall on May 9.

Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who has been substituting for Park since her parliamentary impeachment on Dec. 9, will continue to lead the nation until the next leader is elected.

President Park retreats after addressing the nation over the Choi Soon-sil scandal in November last year. (Yonhap)

“Her violations of the law betrayed the public trust and they are too serious to be tolerated for the sake of protecting the Constitution,” said Lee who read out the verdict.

Park had abused her presidential authority to help her longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil, who holds no government post, pursue personal gains, she added. Choi’s meddling in state affairs was extensive throughout Park’s entire time in office, and Park even attempted to conceal her wrongdoings when the scandal laid them bare.

“The interest of guarding the Constitution by firing her is judged to be overwhelmingly great,” she concluded.

Park offered no message of concession. Her Liberty Korea Party, however, accepted the decision and apologized to the public for its failure to assist the president as the ruling party.

Violence erupted near the court, as thousands of staunch Park supporters protested the ruling. They angrily reacted, shouting, shedding tears and even hitting police officers. Two died of injuries while protesting and the causes of their deaths are still unknown, the police said. Acting President Hwang, in a public statement, called on both supporters and opponents of the ousted Park to accept the ruling and restore national unity.

Park was impeached on a total of 13 charges, which the court bundled into five categories — bribery, abuse of authority, Choi’s manipulation of power behind the scenes, failure to protect people’s lives and violation of press freedom.

The court recognized Park’s active involvement in leaking government secrets to Choi and assisting Choi’s profit-making activities through public entities.

But it did not acknowledge Park’s other charges — her abuse of authority in sacking officials not in Choi’s favor, her negligence of duty in protecting people’s lives during the Sewol ferry disaster and her crackdown on press freedom.

One of Park’s lawyers for the impeachment trial called the ruling “biased.”
“Our suspicions about the court’s secret communications with the parliament turned out to be correct,” Seo Seog-goo, one of Park’s lawyers, told reporters. “I don’t think the trial was purely based on law and conscience.”

The parliament, which served as the prosecution in the impeachment trial, hailed the decision, adding the nation should now stand united.

“I believe that the ruling confirmed the rule of law and people’s sovereignty, which embodies that every person, even the president, is equal before the law. The owner of the country is the people, and all power comes from the people,” said Kwon Seong-dong, the chairman of the parliamentary legislation and judiciary committee.

“Those who held candles or national flags, they are all our people who we should respect and love. There is no victor or loser in this case,” he added.
President Park, who did not turn up at the courtroom throughout the trial, also did not attend the verdict hearing. She reportedly watched the ruling via TV at her residence in the presidential office.

Park’s departure is unlikely to put an end to the months-long crisis, which has caused the country to become deeply divided on generational and ideological lines in the face of the conservative leader’s impeachment.

While opponents of Park gear up to hold a rally to celebrate the result Saturday, Park’s die-hard supporters are set to pour onto the streets to condemn the top court.

Tensions ran high from Thursday evening near the court, as avid protesters for and against former President Park staged rallies in front of the building in last-bid attempts to make their voices heard.

The police raised the level of alert to its highest Friday, dispatching all forces available to mobilize in the nation’s capital. Scores of police buses and some 21,600 officers formed lines to cordon off the court and government offices from mass protests and possible eruptions of violence.

While the Korean flag has become a symbol of their movement to defend the president, a seemingly unrelated flag has also been carried by many of the — mostly elderly — participants at the rallies: the US flag.

Conservative civic group members and President Park Geun-hye‘s supporters hold a giant US flag during their anti-impeachment protest held in central Seoul on Saturday. (Ock Hyun-ju/The Korea Herald)

During the pro-Park rally held Saturday, the senior citizens, many of whom are war veterans or retired soldiers, waved small American flags alongside Korean ones, carrying placards with provocative messages such as “Kill North Korean sympathizers” and “Declare martial law.”

A large-scale US flag also appeared at the heart of Seoul Plaza, with vendors selling American flags.

In the eyes of protestors, mostly influenced in the aftermath of the 1950-1953 Korean War, the US is not only a symbol of the liberal democracy they have fiercely fought for, but also the savior that rescued them from North Korea’s brutal communist rule and poverty.

“I was born during the Korean War. We were so poor and had nothing to eat. It was the US and white people that helped this country in a difficult time to establish a democracy and get richer,” Shin Deuk-jin, 68, told The Korea Herald during the rally while holding a US flag.

South Korea received official development aid from foreign countries totaling about $13 billion, which contributed to Korea’s economic rise from the ashes of the war. The US was one of the biggest donors.

But their fear and anger over politicians and citizens who they said were pro-North Korea are often based on inaccurate information.

Ideological strife is a perennial source of electioneering and partisan bickering in South Korea, and liberal politicians have traditionally supported dialogue and cooperation with the North.

But many of the protesters were seen mistakenly billing leading progressive presidential hopefuls as opponents of the plan to station the US’ Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system here, though many of them are in fact in favor of the plan or leaning toward supporting it.

From top hangs flags of the United Nations, South Korea and the United States of America at an anti-impeachment protest in central Seoul on Saturday. (Ock Hyun-ju/The Korea Herald)

“The US is worried about Korea. It offered to station the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system, but left-wing politicians are turning it down,” Shin said.

“If Moon Jae-in becomes president, I think the US troops will be withdrawn and he will visit North Korea first,” he said, referring to the front-runner of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, who actually does not oppose THAAD.

Park Min-ho, 72, who fought in the Vietnam War alongside US soldiers, said that holding the US flag was to show his support for the strong alliance between South Korea and the US.

“The US is protecting us. Without the US, North Korea could have unified the two Koreas under communist rule. I am also here to protect this country,” he said, “If the impeachment is upheld, the US will also not stay quiet.”

Since the Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, the two Koreas remain technically at war, with some 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea to deter North Korea’s aggressions.

Oh Min-geun, 60, said he wanted to pass the country’s legacy as a liberal democracy along to his children.

“The US is a symbol of liberal democracy and capitalism. We need to learn from it. We are bound in blood,” he said, “Anti-protestors are North Korean sympathizers denying the values and seeking to overturn the country.”

The ratio of South Koreans aged above 12 who used Internet banking services stood at 57.5 percent in 2016, up 5.0 percentage points from a year earlier, according to the survey.

(Yonhap)

The 2016 figure represents a substantial hike from 2004, when 31.6 percent of South Koreans used Internet banking service.

The number of Internet banking service users has been on the rise in recent years as more people use their smartphones for Internet banking.

Among Internet banking service users, 87.1 percent said they used their smartphones for Internet banking in 2016, up 11.5 percentage points.

The survey was conducted on 61,238 people in 25,000 households across the country from August to October last year, according to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, and the Korea Internet & Security Agency.

The number of smartphone-based banking service users came to 74.67 million in 2016, up 15.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea.

South Korea has a population of 51 million, but some people have multiple smartphones.