Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae (Yonhap)
Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae (Yonhap)

As the Constitutional Court reviews the impeachment of suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol over his Dec. 3 martial law decree, either to uphold or overturn it, Yoon's supporters and the ruling People Power Party have attacked Moon Hyung-bae, the court's chief justice, claiming he displayed political bias in the past.

A coalition of 23 right-wing civic groups on Thursday demanded that Moon be recused under the Constitutional Court Act, given alleged evidence of his personal ties to main opposition party Chair Rep. Lee Jae-myung that they claimed make it doubtful he can be impartial in the impeachment trial.

Also on Thursday, the Constitutional Court website was swarmed with thousands of posts calling for Moon's immediate removal from his position. Some of these anonymous posts called Moon a "commie." Others described Moon as "a North Korea follower," "on the left" or "a politically motivated judge."

These comments came along with criticism by the ruling People Power Party regarding Moon's past social media posts.

Ruling party floor leader Rep. Kweon Seong-dong argued Thursday Moon's decision to deactivate his account on social platform X Saturday is proof of his acknowledgement that his posts between 2011 and 2014 were problematic, and that he should be excluded from the trial.

These posts include greetings exchanged on Facebook between Moon and Lee, who was then mayor of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, in seven instances from 2011 to 2013.

The conservative party also railed against the chief justice for remarks on social media after his visit to the United Nations Peace Park in Busan in 2010. According to the party, Moon's posts indicated that he criticized "those who aspired to achieve unification through war" without clarifying which side he was referring to.

Another ruling party lawmaker claimed Moon's words of endorsement about "The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol," a documentary on the Sewol ferry disaster, which killed 304 people, mostly high school students on a field trip, in 2014, "raise doubts over the impartiality and neutrality of the Constitutional Court," Rep. Kim Dai-sik, senior floor spokesperson of the party, said Wednesday.

Senior conservative Rep. Na Kyung-won demanded Wednesday in a Facebook post that three justices on the court -- Moon, Lee Mi-son and Chung Kye-sun -- be excluded from the impeachment trial to "preserve their moral integrity."

Meanwhile, the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea blasted the ruling party for attacking the court's fairness and neutrality, which revealed the latter's intention not to accept the impeachment, as it is nonsensical to bring up Moon's remarks from over a decade ago, according to them.

Democratic Party spokesperson Rep. Lee Geon-tae said Thursday that, by the same logic, the other seven justices of the Constitutional Court should all be recused because they are all alumni of Seoul National University, which is where Yoon studied law.

Chief Justice Moon and Justice Lee are set to retire from their posts in April, while the court has a legal deadline of June to determine whether the motion to impeach Yoon, passed by the parliament on Dec. 14, is constitutional.


consnow@heraldcorp.com