Calling damages symbolic but essential, lawyer says 25,000-person legal action a citizen-led stand for constitutional order
On the night of Dec. 3 last year, lawyer Kim Kyoung-ho was sitting at home with his daughters when then-President Yoon Suk Yeol appeared on television and declared emergency martial law.
For most, it was an alarming constitutional aberration. But for Kim, who spent 13 years as a military legal officer, including seven years as an instructor teaching the law of martial rule, it was something closer to disbelief.
“I had taught this law to commanders for years,” he recalled in an interview with The Korea Herald. “Watching that declaration, I felt as if everything I had warned about in the military was happening in front of my children.”
“Justice achieved through sacrifice for future generations could have simply vanished,” he said. “I worried my children would grow up in a more suppressed world, a society where common sense is not only pushed aside, but suffocated entirely.”
Lawsuit as civic act
Kim decided to carry that shock and anger into court.
Now, one year after the martial law crisis, Kim is the lawyer behind what could become one of the largest civil actions in South Korea’s history: a lawsuit seeking 100,000 won ($68) in damages per person from Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, on behalf of nearly 25,000 Koreans who say they suffered mental distress and a profound blow to their democratic dignity.
“The 100,000 won in damages is the bare minimum penalty for state violence and a historical declaration that we will restore the constitutional values that were shattered,” Kim said.
“It’s not about the amount itself. It’s about leaving a record that this happened, and that people responded.”
The lawsuit builds on a landmark July 25 ruling by the Seoul Central District Court in a separate case brought by 104 people. In that case, the court ordered Yoon to pay 100,000 won to each plaintiff, finding that his declaration of martial law had inflicted emotional harm on ordinary people.
The 24,900-person suit led by Kim expands that logic and, for the first time, targets both of the former presidential couple.
Originally, Kim filed on behalf of 12,225 people. Using a rarely used device, the suit relies on a “selected party” system, where one or a few selected plaintiffs formally appear as parties in court, while thousands of others authorize them and share in the outcome.
Unlike the US, where ordinary people with small individual damages can join without repetition of all the paperwork, the Korean court asked tens of thousands of individuals to obtain seals and documents, demanding that Kim make corrections individually.
Facing the risk that the entire suit could be thrown out on procedural grounds, Kim took the unusual step of withdrawing the case and has refiled with a different division of the same court.
'Civic DNA' behind en masse actions
Kim insists the mass participation is not surprising.
“This is the same country that changed governments with candles, not guns,” he said, referring to the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye.
He also described Koreans’ instinctive response to the martial law attempt as something deeper than political anger.
“We have a civic DNA that goes back to the idea of 'hongik ingan' — a foundational Korean philosophy advocating for a life that benefits the greater good of humanity," he said.
"When people saw ... the Constitution being trampled, they felt something fundamental was being destroyed. That’s why they ran to the National Assembly at dawn.”
Recovered, but work unfinished
One year after the crisis, Kim believes Korean society has “broadly recovered.”
The decree was swiftly revoked, the president was removed and investigations continue. But meaningful resolution, he says, depends on addressing structural issues that enabled the moment.
“At the macro level, stability has returned,” he said. “But the details matter: Officials who enabled this, institutions that failed and the lack of basic constitutional and emergency-law education in the military.”
He argues that preventing future crises requires something simple but long overlooked.
“If officers had understood the Martial Law Act, many would have refused unlawful orders,” he said. “A soldier’s job is to defend the nation, not march on its parliament.”
For Kim, the lawsuit is a civic duty.
“I don’t need this case financially,” he said. “What matters is leaving a precedent that leaders cannot hide behind their office. If you violate the Constitution, citizens can hold you accountable, even for your assets.”
He hopes the suit will mark a turning point in how Korean democracy understands responsibility.
“Ultimately, this case is about something simple,” he said. “A republic survives because its people refuse to look away. And in that sense, those who ran into the streets that night, and the tens of thousands who joined this lawsuit, they are the ones who defended this democracy.”
jychoi@heraldcorp.com
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