It is a peculiar ritual of modern governance that when a head of state decides to light the Constitution on fire, there is always a man in a suit standing next to him, holding the matches and checking to see if the fire safety permit is up to date. Enter Han Duck-soo, the former Prime Minister of South Korea, who has now been handed a lengthy prison sentence. His crime? Being the dutiful administrative lubricant for ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol’s spectacular, brief, and utterly moronic attempt at martial law over a year ago. The court has spoken, the gavel has banged, and society is expected to applaud the cleansing of the temple. But let’s be real: this isn’t justice; it’s just the closing credits of a bad sitcom where the writers ran out of ideas and decided to send everyone to jail.

Let us revisit the sheer absurdity of the event that landed Han in this predicament. When Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, it wasn’t the terrifying, iron-fisted crackdown of a seasoned dictator. It was a tantrum. It was the geopolitical equivalent of a toddler holding their breath until they turn blue because the legislature wouldn’t eat their broccoli. And there was Han Duck-soo, the Prime Minister, the supposed voice of reason, the adult in the room. Did he stand up and say, “Sir, this is insane”? Did he tackle the President to save the Republic? No. He did what career bureaucrats always do: he processed the paperwork. He facilitated the madness. He ensured that the suspension of civil liberties followed the correct formatting guidelines and was filed in triplicate. For this, he now trades his tailored suits for prison fatigues, proving that in the end, the only thing more dangerous than a tyrant is the yes-man who knows how to work the photocopier.

The South Korean judicial system, to its credit, maintains a delightful consistency: it functions primarily as a retirement home for the country’s executive branch. Being a high-ranking politician in Seoul is statistically one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, ranking somewhere between deep-sea welding and being a whistleblower at Boeing. The Blue House Curse is less of a superstition and more of a standard operating procedure. Presidents and their entourages enter office with grand promises of reform and leave in handcuffs. The Left celebrates when the Right goes to jail; the Right celebrates when the Left goes to jail; and the rest of us watch from the sidelines, marveling at how a nation with such advanced technology runs its politics like a feudal blood feud. Han is just the latest sacrifice to this cycle, a scapegoat offered up to appease the angry spirits of a populace tired of incompetence.

But let’s not pretend Han is a victim. He is a symptom of the universal disease of the political class: the inability to distinguish between duty and complicity. The court’s decision to jail him is an attempt to criminalize the spinelessness that defines modern governance. They are punishing him for the role he played in the “turmoil,” a polite euphemism for the absolute chaos that ensues when a leader decides democracy is too inconvenient to tolerate. Han’s defense, undoubtedly, relied on the classic Nuremberg-lite argument: he was just following procedure. He was maintaining order. He was doing his job. And that is exactly why he belongs in a cell. If your job description involves rubber-stamping a coup d'état because you’re afraid of an awkward conversation with your boss, you are not a public servant; you are a public hazard.

Whatever satisfaction the public derives from this sentencing is purely cosmetic. Jailing Han Duck-soo does not fix the structural rot that allowed a President to think martial law was a viable option in a G20 economy. It doesn’t undo the panic, the stock market jitters, or the international embarrassment. It merely provides a head on a pike for the evening news. The masses get their pound of flesh, the current administration gets to preen about “accountability,” and the system resets, ready to produce the next batch of grifters who will inevitably confuse their personal ambitions with the national interest.

In the grand scheme of human stupidity, Han’s fate is a grim reminder that mediocrity offers no protection. He wasn’t the mastermind; he was the mechanic. He didn’t drive the car off the cliff; he just made sure the tank was full before it happened. Now he sits in prison, likely bewildered, wondering how a lifetime of following the rules led to a sentence for breaking the ultimate one. It is a harsh lesson, and one that absolutely no one in power will learn from. The next Han Duck-soo is already out there, climbing the ladder, practicing his signature, ready to sign whatever death warrant the next lunatic places on his desk, convinced that this time, it will be different.