The South Korean court that will rule on the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye has only one precedent and little in the law books to go by, and several legal experts said it will have wide discretion in deciding if she is fit to remain in office.
Seven of nine experts interviewed by Reuters said they believed the Constitutional Court's yardstick in deciding whether Park should remain in office would be less than the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" for criminal trials, making it more difficult for her to win the case.
South Korean law does not specify the standard needed by the Constitutional Court to reach a ruling. It calls for criminal procedural law to be applied during an impeachment trial "at a level that does not clash with the nature of a constitutional trial."