South Korea’s ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol was facing his final impeachment hearing on Tuesday before judges decide whether to formally remove him from office over his disastrous martial law declaration. Yoon’s short-lived suspension of civilian rule plunged democratic South Korea into political turmoil, and he was removed from office by parliament in December. After weeks of fraught impeachment hearings at the Constitutional Court in Seoul, Tuesday’s proceedings began at 2:00 pm (0500 GMT) but Yoon was not present, an AFP journalist in the courtroom said. In opening remarks, Yoon’s defence team cited a 2024 US Supreme Court ruling, Donald Trump v. the United States, arguing that the ousted president cannot be punished for “exercising his core constitutional powers”. That ruling “should be considered in the context of impeachment proceedings”, Yoon’s lawyer Lee Dong-chan said. In response, opposition lawyer Lee Gum-gyu spoke emotively about his son, an active duty soldier he said would have been forced to participate in Yoon’s martial law. “As a citizen and a father, I feel a sense of rage and betrayal toward Yoon, who tried to turn my son into a martial law soldier,” he told the court.