C. Whether to remove the President from office in this case (1) Summary of the violation of law by the President As confirmed above, the acts of violation of law by the President at issue in this case can be categorized into the violation of the 'obligation to maintain neutrality' concerning elections owed by public officials by making statements in support of a particular political party at press conferences, and the violation of the obligation to protect the Constitution owed by the President against the principle of rule of law and Article 72 of the Constitution by expressing unsatisfaction towards the National Election Commission's decision that the President violated the election law and making statements denigrating the current election law and by proposing a confidence referendum. (2) Gravity of the violation of law (A) The President violated the 'obligation to maintain neutrality concerning elections' by making statements supporting a particular political party, thereby infringing the constitutional request that the state institution should not affect the process through which the public freely forms the opinion or distort the competitive relations among the political parties. However, such acts by the President do not constitute affirmative acts of violation against the 'parliamentary system' or 'electoral system' constituting basic order of free democracy and, accordingly, it cannot be deemed that the negative impact of the acts in violation of the Public Officials Election Act upon the constitutional order was grave, considering that the above acts of violation of the President were not committed in any affirmative, active or premeditated way by, for example, attempting to have administrative authority intervene through state organization. Instead, they took place in a way that was unaggressive, passive, and incidental, during the course of expressing the president's political belief or policy design in the form of a response to the question posed by the reporters at the press conference. It should also be considered that the boundary between the 'expression of opinion toward politics' constitutionally permissible for the President who is allowed to do political and party activities and the impermissible 'acts of violating neutrality obligation concerning elections' is blurred and there has not been any established clear legal interpretation as to 'in which circumstances it is beyond the scope of political activities permitted for the President with respect to elections.' (B) The President's statement and act that causes suspicion to - 198 -