Yoon Suk Yeol
Yoon Suk Yeol is a South Korean politician and attorney who served as the 13th president of South Korea from 2022 until his removal from office in 2025. A member of the People Power Party during his presidency, he was the shortest-serving directly elected president in the country's democratic history since 1987. Yoon previously served as the prosecutor general of South Korea from 2019 to 2021.
Born in Seoul, Yoon received his bachelor's and master's degrees in law from Seoul National University. In his capacity as chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office, he played a key role in convicting former presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak for corruption and abuse of power. In 2019, President Moon Jae-in appointed Yoon as Prosecutor General of South Korea. Under Yoon's leadership, the Supreme Prosecutor's Office conducted embattled investigations into Cho Kuk, an influential figure in the Moon administration, that led to Cho's resignation as Minister of Justice. Yoon's clashes with the Moon administration prior to his resignation as prosecutor general in 2021 led to his rise as a potential presidential candidate among conservative voters.
On 29 June 2021, Yoon announced his candidacy in the 2022 presidential election. He joined the People Power Party in July and won its nomination in November. Considered a conservative politician, Yoon ran on a platform promising economic deregulation, opposing feminism and measures such as abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. He narrowly defeated Democratic Party nominee Lee Jae Myung by less than a percentage point on 9 March 2022 and assumed office as president on 10 May, becoming the first elected president to be born after the end to fighting in the Korean War.
During his presidency, Yoon pursued friendlier relations with Japan and the United States, and has been described as hawkish toward North Korea. His handling of the Seoul Halloween crowd crush in 2022 and the medical crisis has attracted criticism. In the 2024 parliamentary midterm elections, Yoon's party suffered a defeat, which weakened his political power. Under Yoon's tenure, South Korea underwent democratic backsliding and a shift towards authoritarianism. He received mostly low approval ratings as president and had been described as a lame duck.
On 3 December 2024, Yoon declared martial law, the first time it had been declared in South Korea since the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan in 1980. He accused members of the National Assembly of supporting North Korea, but lifted martial law after the Assembly passed an emergency motion nullifying the declaration a few hours later. Amid widespread criticism and mass protests, an impeachment motion was introduced against Yoon the next day, though it fell short of the 200 votes needed to pass. Yoon was successfully impeached and suspended from his presidential powers in a second vote ten days later. Yoon subsequently became the first sitting president in South Korean history to face an arrest warrant and, in January 2025, the first to be arrested and incarcerated. On 4 April, the Constitutional Court unanimously upheld Yoon's impeachment by the National Assembly, officially terminating his presidency. Yoon announced his departure from the PPP in May. Yoon is currently detained and being investigated for heading an insurrection, and may face either life imprisonment or the death penalty if convicted.
Early life and education
Yoon was born in Bomun-dong, Seongbuk District, Seoul, in 1960, and raised in Yeonhui-dong, Seodaemun District. His father, Yoon Ki Joong, was born in Nonsan, and was a professor emeritus of economics at Yonsei University and a full member of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Korea. His mother, Choi Seong-ja, was born in Gangneung, and was a lecturer at Ewha Womans University before leaving the position after getting married.Yoon attended Daegwang Elementary School and Joongrang Middle School, transferring to Chungam Middle School after finishing eighth grade. After graduating from Chungam High School in 1979, he studied law at Seoul National University where he earned a Bachelor of Laws in 1983 and a Master of Laws in 1988. Shortly after the Gwangju Uprising, Yoon and his colleagues held a mock trial where he acted as a prosecutor, demanding life imprisonment for President Chun Doo-hwan. Fearing imprisonment for his role in the mock trial, Yoon fled to Gangwon Province.
Yoon was exempted in 1982 from national service due to anisometropia. Yoon later stated that he was unable to obtain a driver's license because of the condition. After passing the first part of the bar exam in his fourth year of university, Yoon continued to attempt the second part over the next nine years. He eventually passed the bar in 1991, placing him in the same graduating class as Democratic Party Assemblyman and Minister of Justice Park Beom-kye.
History with Kim Yong-hyun
In 1977, while attending Chungam High School, Yoon met Kim Yong-hyun, the future Minister of National Defense, who was one year his senior and was the head of the Student Defense Corps. The student defense corps was an organization created by the South Korean government in 1975 to replace the student council, to "establish an all-out security system for the school system." Kim explained his relationship with Yoon in an interview, saying, "I heard there was a junior who was good at studying and had a sense of duty, so I called him out of curiosity and asked to meet him." After Kim entered the Korea Military Academy, he lost contact with Yoon. Years later, through an alumni association, they found each other again and stayed in contact.However, the two didn't become close friends until 2020, after Yoon was suspended from his prosecutor general duties by Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae. Yoon, who was living a life of exile due to the suspension, called Kim over to have a drink. Here, Kim and Yoon had a conversation about prominent political South Korean figures, which reportedly got Yoon interested in running for president. After Yoon announced his campaign, Kim told him; "If you want to win the election, you need to build a campaign centered around Chungam High School alumni and Seoul National University alumni, people who aren't from the prosecution." This allegedly led to the two forming the Chungam Faction after Yoon became president.
Prosecutorial career
Early career
Yoon started his career at Daegu Public Prosecutor's Office in 1994. He headed the Special Branch and Central Investigation Department, both of which investigate corruption-related cases. In 1999, he arrested Assistant Commissioner Park Hui-won, who was corrupt despite strong objections from bureaucrats in the Kim Dae-jung cabinet.In January 2002, Yoon worked briefly as a lawyer at Bae, Kim & Lee but left because he felt the position was unsuitable. Upon his return as a prosecutor, he prosecuted pro-Roh Moo-hyun figures such as Ahn Hee-jung and Kang Keum-won. In 2006, he apprehended Chung Mong-koo for his complicity in a slush fund case at Hyundai Motor Company. In 2008, he worked for the independent counsel team resolving the BBK incident related to President Lee Myung-bak.
In 2013, Yoon led a special investigation team that looked into the National Intelligence Service 's involvement in the 2012 NIS public opinion manipulation scandal. Yoon sought the prosecution of the former head of the NIS, Won Sei-hoon, for violating the Public Official Election Act. He also accused Justice Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn of influencing his investigation. As a result, he was demoted from the Seoul prosecutors' office to the Daegu and Daejeon High Prosecutors' Office.
Yoon later became head of investigations in the special prosecutor team of Park Young-soo, which investigated allegations of the 2016 Choi Soon-sil scandal involving Choi, Samsung vice-chairman Lee Jae-yong, and then-president Park Geun-hye, which led to the impeachment of the president in December 2016.
On 19 May 2017, the newly elected president Moon Jae-in appointed Yoon as chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office. The prosecution went on to indict two former presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, three former NIS chiefs, former chief justice Yang Sung-tae, and more than 100 other former officials and business executives under his tenure. Yoon also led an investigation into accounting fraud at Samsung.
Prosecutor general
On 17 June 2019, Yoon was nominated as prosecutor general, replacing Moon Moo-il. His nomination was welcomed by the ruling Democratic Party and the Party for Democracy and Peace but was opposed by the Liberty Korea Party and the Bareunmirae Party. The minor party Justice Party remained neutral. On 16 July, he was officially appointed the new prosecutor general and started his term nine days later. President Moon ordered him to be neutral, adding that any kind of corruption must be strictly investigated in any and all areas of government.During Yoon's leadership, the Supreme Prosecutor's Office launched investigations against Minister of Justice Cho Kuk, who was involved in various scandals. His decision to investigate Cho was welcomed by the conservative opposition but condemned by the Democratic Party and its supporters. The investigations led to Cho's resignation as Minister of Justice.
After Choo Mi-ae was appointed the new minister of justice, she took action against several prosecutors close to Yoon. Choo attributed her decision to Yoon's failure to submit a reorganization plan for his department, which she had requested, but this was seen as retaliation by the Blue House for Cho Kuk's prosecution.
In April 2020, Democratic Party lawmakers again attacked Yoon and called on him to resign after the prosecution had started investigations into election law violation cases involving both ruling and opposition politicians and suspected election rigging of the Ulsan mayoral race for Mayor Song Cheol-ho in 2018 by senior secretaries at the Blue House.
Opposition politicians also accused Yoon of refusing to raid the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, which had been accused of spreading COVID-19 in South Korea, after he had received advice from a shaman.