Court dismisses President Yoon's request to postpone impeachment hearing date

Thank you for joining us. I'm Yoon Jung-min.

We start at the Constitutional Court where the ninth hearing of President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment trial took place today.

For details, we have our correspondent Oh Soo-young standing by.

Q1. Soo-young, I understand today's hearing saw the two sides laying out their respective arguments with regard to the legality of the president's declaration of martial law.

That's right. Today's hearing began at 2 PM but without President Yoon Suk Yeol.

He was supposed to make an appearance -as he has for the past six hearings -but ended up sitting out the ninth hearing today.

As the last few hearings focused on questioning witnesses, the session was intended for each side: the National Assembly's impeachment team and President Yoon's lawyers to summarize their cases for and against impeachment and to go over the evidence that the bench hasn't covered yet.

To go over the main arguments made so far

The National Assembly panel has claimed: that Yoon's declaration of martial law itself was illegal as he did not go through Cabinet procedures, as were his proclamation of martial law decrees.

The panel says Yoon also tried to disrupt parliamentary activities by deploying troops to the National Assembly as well as the National Election Commission an independent constitutional body and tried to arrest judicial figures.

The panel continued to claim Yoon intended to shut down the National Assembly,.. and cited how witnesses and other central figures have indicated that the martial law declaration was procedurally flawed.

"This is a direct attack on the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers. From the perspective of constitutional protection, it is an absolutely unacceptable act."

Meanwhile, Yoon's side has continued to insist martial law was Constitutional as an executive right of the president, and that the opposition party had made it impossible for the government to function by constantly impeaching officials, introducing and dramatically cutting the budget.

The team on Tuesday further built on suspicions of election fraud in the General Election last year, saying there appeared to have been false ballot papers and irregularities that need to be investigated.

Q2. Moving forward then what can we expect on Thursday?

The 10th hearing on Thursday will feature three witness examinations beginning with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.

Han previously said that the President had not held a proper Cabinet meeting before declaring martial law on December 3rd.

Former Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service Hong Jang-won was summoned last week by the National Assembly's side but will return to be questioned by Yoon's legal team.

Hong claims there was a list of 14 to 16 figures the President wanted to arrest under martial law.

National Police Agency Commissioner General Cho Ji-ho will also stand witness, after missing two sessions for health reasons.

Both the National Assembly's panel and Yoon's legal team plan to question the Prime Minister and the police commissioner-general.

Q3. I also hear the court rejected an earlier request by the President's defense team for a rescheduling of Thursday's session.

That's right, despite Yoon's legal team asking for more preparation time, given that they have to also cover his criminal trial proceedings starting the same day, the Constitutional Court decided to push ahead with the tenth hearing on Thursday.

When Yoon's team asked for a reconsideration, the bench merely pushed back the hearing by an hour so it will now begin at 3 PM, instead of 2 PM.

Acting Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae suggested as Yoon's pretrial for his criminal case is at 10 AM, the legal team should be able to make it in the afternoon, and added the Court is also juggling three other trial hearings this week.

So Thursday looks to be the last witness examination at this point, as the Court rejected all other applications made by Yoon's lawyers, and has emphasized the need for a swift trial.

Now, if there's one more session scheduled to wrap up the arguments and hear Yoon's closing statement, it's likely a verdict would be delivered in the first half of March.

All right.

That was our Oh Soo-young with the latest on the president's impeachment trial.