[AI Library] Chapter 1: December 3, 2024, 10:30 PM
The Han Dong-hoon Story
Chapter 1: December 3, 2024, 10:30 PM
Kim Kyung-jin
The Han Dong-hoon Story
PART 01 The Night He Chose the Nation Over Faction · Original Text 01
Han Dong-hoon was expelled from the party.
On January 29, 2026, Jang Dong-hyeok, chairman of the People Power Party, expelled Han Dong-hoon from the party. The conduct in question was the charge.
Yet history will record it differently. It will say it was the cost of protecting the Constitution. The seeds of tragedy were sown exactly one year and two months earlier. It was a winter night when South Korea held its breath.
On December 3, 2024, at 10:27 PM, President Yoon Suk-yeol began an emergency address from the presidential office in Yongsan.
Many citizens expected North Korean provocation or a diplomatic matter. But the word from the President's mouth was "martial law." "I declare martial law to eradicate pro-North forces and protect the free constitutional order." For the first time in 44 years, the hands of constitutional history turned backward.
At that moment, Han Dong-hoon, chairman of the People Power Party, was watching the broadcast.
He was a man who had spent his entire life dealing with the Constitution and the law. In the President's address, he could not find the conditions for martial law as stipulated by the Constitution. The phrase "wartime, armed conflict, or a state of national emergency equivalent thereto" appeared nowhere.
Han Dong-hoon made an immediate judgment. It was wrong.
Though the Democratic Party had abused its authority to the point of nearly paralyzing the presidency, such matters should be judged through elections. The notion of branding political opponents as anti-state forces and deploying the military to eradicate them was incompatible with the spirit of the Constitution, he believed.
There was no hesitation.
The moment the President's address ended, Han Dong-hoon was the first politician in South Korea to break the silence. He sent an urgent message. "The President's declaration of martial law is wrong. We will stop it together with the people." At the end of the message, he clearly signed it: "Han Dong-hoon, Chairman of the People Power Party." It was an unprecedented declaration in constitutional history: the ruling party officially rejecting the President's decision.
Right after sending the message, he headed to the National Assembly. Warnings poured in from those around him. "It's dangerous to go to the Assembly now." "The military is moving in." A phone call came. "You must not get caught. Hide for about a day." Years later, Han Dong-hoon would recall that moment this way: "Frankly, I thought, I'm finished." Fear gripped him. Yet he did not turn the car around. He was afraid, but heading to the Assembly was a choice made for the nation.
He was certain. Only if he was present at the scene, only if he stood there with the constitutional weight of being the ruling party's chairman, could he place political pressure on the martial law forces and prevent bloodshed. That certainty sustained him.
That night, when everything he had might be ending, Han Dong-hoon drove his car through the darkness toward Yeouido.
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Kim Kyung-jin
Attorney · Former Member of the National Assembly · AI Policy Researcher
© 2026 Kim Kyung-jin. All rights reserved.