Impeachment of Park Geun-hye

Impeachment of Park Geun-hye
Accused	Park Geun-hye (President of South Korea)
Proponents	Woo Sang-ho, Park Jie-won, Roh Hoe-chan
Date	9 December 2016 – 10 March 2017 (2016-12-09 – 2017-03-10)
Outcome	Convicted by the Constitutional Court of Korea, removed from office New presidential elections held in May 2017; Moon Jae-in elected as president
Charges	Abuse of power, coercion
Cause	2016 South Korean political scandal
Impeachment vote by National Assembly (9 December 2016)
Votes in favor	234 / 300
Votes against	56 / 300
Present	2
Not voting	1 (7 votes invalid)
Result	Park impeached and suspended from the presidency for the duration of the impeachment trial; Hwang Kyo-ahn becomes acting president
Decision by Constitutional Court of Korea (10 March 2017)
Votes in favor	8 / 8
Votes against	0 / 8
Result	Impeachment verdict upheld; Park removed from office Moon Jae-in elected president on 9 May 2017 Park sentenced to 24 years in prison on 6 April 2018[a]
National Assembly: 2004092 Constitutional Court: 2016헌나1

The impeachment of Park Geun-hye, President of South Korea, was the culmination of a political scandal involving interventions to the presidency from her aide, Choi Soon-sil. The impeachment vote took place on 9 December 2016, with 234 members of the 300-member National Assembly voting in favour of the impeachment and temporary suspension of Park Geun-hye's presidential powers and duties.^[1] This exceeded the required two-thirds threshold in the National Assembly and, although the vote was by secret ballot, the results indicated that more than half of the 128 lawmakers in Park's party Saenuri had supported her impeachment.^[1] Thus, Hwang Kyo-ahn, then Prime Minister of South Korea, became Acting President while the Constitutional Court of Korea was due to determine whether to accept the impeachment. The court upheld the impeachment in a unanimous 8–0 decision on 10 March 2017, removing Park from office. The regularly scheduled presidential election was advanced to 9 May 2017, and Moon Jae-in, former leader of the Democratic Party, was elected as Park's permanent successor.

Park was formally sentenced to 24 years in prison on 6 April 2018 after being found guilty of abuse of power and coercion. This was later raised to 25 years and a fine of ₩20 billion (US$17.86 million) following an appeal by prosecutors.^[2][3] President Moon would go on to pardon Park Geun-hye on compassionate grounds in December 2021.^[4] She was ultimately released and later returned home in March 2022.^[5]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).