The Democratic Party of Korea and the Rebuilding Korea Party, along with civic organizations, set up tents on the sidewalk in front of Gyeongbokgung Palace in March, ahead of the Constitutional Court's impeachment trial against then-President Yoon Suk-yeol. The Seoul City government established a policy to impose fines, labeling the tents as 'illegal,' but three months later, no actual actions have taken place. Jongno District, the agency responsible for imposing the fines, stated that they 'could not levy fines due to strong backlash.'
According to Jongno District and the Seoul City government on the 26th, Jongno only issued a warning—a preliminary step before imposing fines—against several organizations that set up tents in front of Gyeongbokgung Palace during the impeachment crisis, and did not actually impose any fines.
Major political parties and civic organizations set up tents along a 200-meter stretch from the west side of Gyeongbokgung Palace to Gwanghwamun from March 8. The Democratic Party of Korea also held a site committee meeting there. The tents remained until the Constitutional Court's decision to impeach former President Yoon on April 4. Tents measuring 3 meters wide and 6 meters long were primarily set up, and at one point, there were reportedly over 90 tents, including some camping tents.
As the tents proliferated, citizens and foreign tourists visiting Gyeongbokgung experienced inconvenience in passing through. Oh Se-hoon, the mayor of Seoul, noted on March 15 regarding the tents, 'Tents installed on roads without local government permission are certainly illegal under current law,' and said, 'We will review all necessary measures, including the imposition of fines.' On the 24th of the same month, he instructed to execute administrative power without tolerance, including the imposition of fines and forced removal, in cooperation with the Korean National Police Agency and district offices.
Accordingly, Jongno District issued warnings to 56 tents, which are the largest in area at 3 meters wide and 6 meters long and have been maintained for a relatively long time, stating that they constitute illegal occupation of the road under the Road Act and should be removed.
If the 2 to 3-day warning period indicated in the warning has passed and the tents have not been removed, the local government can impose fines. The area of a tent measuring 3 meters wide and 6 meters long is 18 square meters, which exceeds the standard area of 15 square meters for the maximum fine under current law. In this case, a fine of 1.5 million won would be imposed per day.
However, fines were not imposed in reality. According to Jongno District, fines must be imposed on the representative of the organization that set up the tent. However, there were many cases where there was no representative when government officials visited the tents. Even when a representative was present, there were cases where they refused to sign the warning, preventing any follow-up action.
A Jongno District official said, 'The biggest concern was the possibility of physical conflict between the tent protesters and frontline officials,' adding, 'If we proceeded to enforce fines, there were concerns for the safety of the officials.'
The group opposing the impeachment of former President Yoon also had tents installed in the Gwanghwamun area that were subject to fines. This official stated, 'Even delivering the warnings led to strong pushback, labeling the pro-impeachment group as 'far-right' and the anti-impeachment group as 'far-left.' Ultimately, they were asked to voluntarily remove the tents after delivering the warnings 2 to 3 times a week. Jongno District concluded that it would be difficult to impose fines while tolerating potential physical clashes.