SK’s Constitutional Court Disbands UPP

On December 19th [KST] South Korea’s
Constitutional Court, for the first time since its establishment in 1988, has
ruled that the minor opposition Unified Progressive Party [UPP] should be
dissolved. 

Of the court’s nine judges, eight agreed to
the party’s disbandment, and called for the immediate removal of the
party’s five elected lawmakers from their positions in the National Assembly; the
districts that lost their lawmakers will hold by elections in April.
 

The UPP attempted to wage a forceful
rebellion to realize North Korean-style socialism,

Park Han Cheol, the presiding chief justice stated during the ruling.
This goal is a direct violation of the basic principles of
democracy.
” 

He added, Considering
the situation on the Korean Peninsula where [the South] remains in conflict
with the North, the threat does not stop at being abstract in nature,
going on to point out that the within the UPPs principles lies specific danger that
poses actual threat [to the nation].

Of the decision to strip the representative of their positions, he asserted, “In order to effectively secure the purpose of
disbanding the party, the representative nature of lawmakers cannot help but be
sacrificed.”


The ruling comes over a year after an initial petition filed by the Ministry of
Justice on November 5th, 2013, shortly after a number the party’s members were
arrested on rebellion conspiracy charges.