Anchor: President Yoon Suk Yeol has been forced out of office, becoming the second president in South Korea’s history to face the same fate. The Constitutional Court said in a unanimous decision that Yoon betrayed the people’s trust by declaring martial law unconstitutionally and unlawfully. The ruling is effective immediately. 
Kim In-kyung wraps up this report. 

Report: President Yoon Suk Yeol has been removed from office, 111 days after the National Assembly voted to impeach him for declaring martial law.
 
The Constitutional Court unanimously upheld the impeachment motion Friday, bringing his presidency to an abrupt end more than two years before his five-year term was up.
 
[Sound bite: Justice Moon Hyung-bae (Korean/English)]
“I hereby deliver the following ruling in a unanimous decision from all the justices. Since this is an impeachment case, I will check the time of the verdict. The current time is 11:22 a.m. The respondent, Yoon Suk Yeol, is removed from office. This concludes the sentencing.”

Justice Moon Hyung-bae, the court’s acting president, said Yoon broke the law when he ordered troops dispatched to the National Assembly on December 3. 

[Sound bite: Justice Moon Hyung-bae (Korean/English)]
“Accordingly, soldiers entered the National Assembly premises using helicopters and other means, and some even broke windows and entered the main building. 
...
“In addition, the respondent informed the commissioner general of the National Police Agency of the contents of the martial law decree through the martial law commander and personally called [the police chief] six times. The commissioner general then ordered access to the National Assembly to be completely cut off. As a result, some of the lawmakers who were gathering at the Assembly had to climb over walls or were unable to enter at all.”
 
The former president also ordered the Army’s special operations commander to smash doors and drag lawmakers out by force to prevent them from voting to strike down the martial law decree. 

Despite the order, the National Assembly quickly voted down the decree and the ordeal lasted only six hours. 

But for many South Koreans it brought back memories of the early 1980s, when soldiers massacred civilians.

Yoon, a former prosecutor, was elected president by a razor-thin margin in March 2022. 

His term was mired in partisanship, with the ruling party dwarfed by a much larger opposition that stymied his agenda.
 
Yoon argued that he imposed martial law because the opposition-led parliament created a national emergency — exercising “legislative tyranny” by impeaching an unprecedented number of top officials and unilaterally cutting the budget. 

But the court said there was no serious crisis facing the nation that could have justified martial law. 

[Sound bite: Justice Moon Hyung-bae (Korean/English)]
“[The respondent] failed to fulfill the duty of defending the constitution and significantly betrayed the trust of the Republic of Korea, which is the sovereign of the democratic republic, by curtailing the rights of constitutional institutions including the National Assembly and infringing on the basic human rights of the people by mobilizing troops and the police.” 

Yoon is the second South Korean president to be ousted from office.

Another conservative president, Park Geun-hye, was forced out over corruption charges in 2017.
 
Yoon is fighting insurrection charges in a separate criminal trial, which began in February.

Under South Korean law, a snap presidential election must take place within 60 days.
Kim In-kyung, KBS World Radio News.