The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's sentence of seven years in prison for former President Yoon Suk-yeol over charges including obstruction of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials) in executing an arrest. With this, 583 days after the Dec. 3, 2024 proclamation of unlawful martial law, the first final judgment has been reached among the eight criminal cases involving the former president.

The Supreme Court's Third Division (with Justice Lee Sook-yeon as the justice in charge) delivered its ruling on the final appeal in Courtroom No. 1 on the 9th in the case against the former president for obstruction of a special official duty and abuse of authority to impede the exercise of rights, and so announced.

The Supreme Court stated, “There is no error of legal misapprehension in the lower court's finding that the investigative procedures of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials were lawful and that the procedures for executing the search warrant were lawful,” and dismissed the appeal.

This case concerns allegations that in January last year the former president mobilized Presidential Security Service staff to block the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials from executing an arrest warrant, for which the special counsel team on insurrection led by Cho Eun-seok indicted him in detention last July. Also included in the indictment were allegations that, at the time of the martial-law proclamation, only some cabinet members were convened, thereby infringing the martial-law deliberation rights of nine cabinet members who could not attend the meeting, and that on the following day a PG (government position statement) containing false content was drafted and distributed to the foreign press.

In January, the court of first instance found him guilty only of obstruction of arrest and part of the infringement of the deliberation rights of cabinet members, and sentenced him to five years in prison. However, in April, the Seoul High Court Criminal Division 1, assigned to insurrection cases (Presiding Judge Yoon Sung-sik), also recognized an infringement of deliberation rights with respect to former Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Park Sang-woo and former Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Ahn Deok-geun, who had been notified before the proclamation of martial law but did not arrive in time, and increased the sentence to seven years.

The appellate court also overturned the first-instance acquittal and found him guilty of having a PG containing the false assertion ‘there was not the slightest intent to destroy the constitutional order’ disseminated to the foreign media. It further found him guilty of offenses including drafting false official documents by creating a false proclamation as if martial law had been effected by a document countersigned (signed) by former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and former Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-hyun after the lifting of martial law, and then destroying it, as well as violating the Presidential Records Act.

Both the former president and the special counsel filed appeals, but the Supreme Court dismissed them, stating there was no misapprehension of the law.