SEOUL, Dec 4 (Reuters) - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Wednesday he would move to lift a martial law declaration he had imposed just hours before, honoring a parliamentary vote against the measure. Yoon declared martial law on Tuesday to thwart “anti-state forces” among his opponents. But outraged lawmakers rejected the decree, as protesters gathered outside parliament in the country’s biggest political crisis in decades. Yoon’s surprise declaration, which he cast as aimed at his political foes, was unanimously voted down by 190 lawmakers in the parliament. Under South Korean law, the president must immediately lift martial law if parliament demands it by a majority vote. His own party urged him to lift the decree. The crisis in a country that has been a democracy since the 1980s, and is a U.S. ally and major Asian economy, caused international alarm.
Doesn’t matter what he says, it was already rescinded by the legislature.
Kind of does, since the defense ministry said they were going to enforce martial law until the president lifted it, after parliament voted it down.
From a legal perspective, it doesn’t matter. The Defense Minister reports to the president so it is still just the executive branch. Their constitution states that martial law is over when rescinded by the legislature.
Guns always beat laws.
The legal perspective ceases to matter much when the enforcers of the law don’t enforce it. Laws become mere words.