process principle is groundless. 4. Nature of the impeachment adjudication procedure in Article 65 of the Constitution and the grounds for impeachment A. The impeachment adjudication procedure is a system designed to protect and maintain the Constitution from infringement by highranking public officials of the executive and judicial branches. Article 65 of the Constitution provides for the possibility of impeachment of high-ranking public officials of the executive branch and the judiciary for violation of the Constitution or statutes. It thereby functions as a warning to such public officials not to violate the Constitution and thus also prevents such violations. Further, where certain public officials are delegated with state authority by the citizenry but abuse such authority to violate the Constitution or statutes, the impeachment process functions to deprive them of such authority. That is, reinforcing the normative power of the Constitution by holding certain public officials legally responsible for their violation of the Constitution in exercising their official duties is the purpose and the function of the impeachment adjudication process. Article 65 of the Constitution includes the President in the definition of public officials who are subject to impeachment, memorializing a discerned position that even the President elected by the public and thereby directly endowed with democratic legitimacy may be impeached in order for the preservation of the constitutional order and that the considerable political chaos that may be caused by a decision to remove the President from office should be deemed as an inevitable cost of democracy in order for the national community to protect the basic order of free democracy. The system subjecting the President to the possibility of impeachment, thus realizes the principle of the rule of law or a state governed by law that every person is under the law and no possessor of the state power, however mighty, is above the law. Our Constitution, in order to fulfill the function of the impeachment adjudication process as a process dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution, expressly provides in Article 65 that the ground for impeachment shall be a 'violation of the Constitution or statutes' and mandates the Constitutional Court to take charge of the impeachment adjudication, thereby indicating that the purpose of the impeachment system lies in the removal of the President 'not for political grounds but for violations of law.' - 166 -