When President Lee Jae Myung took office last year, South Korea needed democratic repair. Former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law attempt shocked the country and convinced many voters that democracy had to be defended.

But democratic repair requires more than impeachment. It requires rebuilding a presumption of civic good faith — that citizens are not malicious actors unless proven otherwise.

South Korea’s democratic development has long combined liberal constitutional principles with a preventive understanding of democracy. Liberal citizenship has coexisted uneasily with the idea that some groups, parties or movements are not merely mistaken political opponents, but bad-faith