On December 31, 2024, Seoul Western District Court issued an arrest warrant for South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on charges of insurrection. It was the first time such a warrant was issued for an incumbent president, albeit an impeached one. But it was only natural. Yoon upended South Korea’s democracy with his unconstitutional declaration of martial law in early December; South Koreans and the whole world watched in horror as armed forces smashed into the National Assembly in an attempt to cripple the legislature and imprison lawmakers.

Holed up in his presidential residence since then, Yoon had snubbed subpoenas for the ongoing investigations. He even composed a letter to his far-right supporters gathered outside. Printed out in a somber font with a handwritten autograph at the bottom, the letter thanked and exhorted them to fight with and for him – in saving the country, Yoon said, but it reads a lot like that takes the form of thwarting his arrest. For a new year’s greeting, the letter was also pugnacious and spiteful. Yoon mentioned the “wriggling of vile elements that threaten to subvert the nation’s sovereignty,” swearing to fight till the end.

He successfully incited his extremist advocates, some of whom now talk of shooting and bombing anyone who tries to arrest Yoon. This is seditious. But something worse, a genuine farce, unfolded on January 3.

In the morning of that day, some 100 investigators and police officers approached the presidential residence to execute the court-issued arrest warrant and detain Yoon. They jostled their way past the gates and buses and armored vehicles, only to be confronted by roughly 200 presidential security guards. Tension was high in the presence of firearms visible on the part of the Presidential Security Service (PSS). The investigators retreated.

Just like on December 3, when South Koreans witnessed how democracy could crumble overnight, they gasped yet again at the ghastly sight of a small privatized army defying due constitutional and judicial process.

The PSS put forth two legal grounds for its action. The PSS’s existence and operation derive from the Presidential Security Act, which delineates its purview as safeguarding the president’s life and property from danger and disaster, and defending a particular area to that purpose. Hence, the PSS statement read, “Absolute protection of the president’s safety is our raison d’être and noble mission.”

The other legal justification is the Criminal Procedure Act (CPA), under which search and seizure of a place containing confidential military information cannot be conducted without approval of a person in charge of the place – i.e. either the president or the PSS chief.

However, the PSS’s invocation and application of these two statutes are specious at best. First, detaining and interrogating the........

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