[Editorial] Rewriting Constitution

In his address on Constitution Day on Wednesday, Kang Chang-hee, speaker of the National Assembly, proposed to create a special committee empowered to draft an amendment to the Constitution. He was right to say that the basic law needs revising as the Korean society has outgrown some of its devices, with the power structure being most notable among them.

When the Constitution was being revised in 1987, the overriding concern of the public was how to prevent the military-backed Chun Doo-hwan dictatorship from extending its rule. As such, the presidential system of government was changed to limit the term in office to five years, with the president not permitted to seek a second term. However, one major drawback was that the president, banned from seeking reelection, was destined to slip into lame-duck status prematurely.

Korea has since turned itself into a mature democracy ― so mature that the fear of the military staging another coup is dispelled from the minds of the Korean people. Moreover, past surveys have confirmed a majority of the electorate support a constitutional rewriting. A majority is the minimum requirement for a draft amendment to be approved in a referendum.

It will not be difficult to pass an amendment through the 300-seat National Assembly with the approval of two-thirds or more of its members. As many as 202 of the 233 lawmakers that responded to a July 2012 survey said they would support an amendment when it was put to a vote under a bipartisan agreement.

Few obstacles to constitutional amendment have been found to lie ahead. Still, efforts to rewrite the Constitution have fizzled out in the past. Among the most plausible reasons is the reluctance of the incumbent presidents, who did not like to see their key policy proposals being drowned in the vortex of amendment fervor.

President Park Geun-hye is no exception. When the ruling and opposition parties agreed in April to promote constitutional revision, she said, “A public debate on constitutional revision will be like a black hole. I need to improve the lives of the people and win their trust first.”

Apparently with the president’s priority in policy in mind, the National Assembly speaker proposed to start a public debate in earnest next year and push for the adoption of a constitutional amendment before the current National Assembly’s term in office expires in 2016. His proposal is reasonable enough to deserve Park’s unreserved backing.