Future of South Korea’s Constitution uncertain

SEOUL — The future of South Korea’s Constitution has emerged as a major political topic after the Constitutional Court removed Ms Park Geun-hye as president last week.

Several parties, including conservatives, said South Koreans should vote on a new Constitution in addition to a new president in early May.

They said the shocking downfall of Ms Park, who may face criminal charges over extortion and bribery, showed that the 30-year-old Constitution places too much power that is easily abused and often goes unchecked into the hands of the president.

Their proposal for a new Constitution is based on power-sharing, where the president is limited to handling foreign affairs and national security and leaves domestic affairs to a prime minister picked by Parliament.

However, the party of liberal Moon Jae-in, who opinion polls show as the clear favourite to become South Korea’s next leader, opposes a quick constitutional revision and accuses rival parties of plotting a short-cut to power.

Critics refuse to see the court’s decision to uphold Ms Park’s impeachment as proof the Constitution works as is. They include none other than one of the court’s justices, Mr Ahn Chang-ho. In a supplementary opinion written into Ms Park’s ruling, Mr Ahn found the Constitution responsible for an “imperial presidency” that breeds “deplorable political customs” such as abuse of power and corruptive ties with the country’s biggest companies, which have a tradition of bribing politicians for business favours.

He said the president simply has too much power over the appointment of government officials, making of laws and policies, budget planning and other decisions, which lawmakers find difficult to check for most of the single five-year term.

“Our country has a winner-takes-it-all representative system, where those who win an election, even by just one vote, obtain imperial political power and those who don’t get swept to the side and are neglected,” wrote Mr Ahn.

A constitutional change would need the support of two-thirds of the 300-seat Parliament and then pass a national referendum.

Mr Moon, who is likely to be the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, said he is open to discussions about constitutional revision, but opposes any changes that take place before or simultaneously with the upcoming presidential election.

He said two months is too short to properly rewrite the Constitution, which not only lays out fundamental principles for power and governance, but also defines the basic rights of citizens.

Besides proposing power-sharing between the president and prime minister, the parties backing a constitutional overhaul also call for the next president’s term to be reduced to three years, so that a presidential vote can coincide with a parliamentary election in 2020. By then, the parties want a president to be able to serve two four-year terms or a six-year single term.

However, some experts questioned whether South Korea’s Constitution is really at fault.

“South Korea’s imperial president wasn’t created by laws, but by custom and culture,” Dr Won-ho Park, a Seoul National University politics professor, wrote in a newspaper column.

“The secret to why our president can influence so many things, even the appointment of public university presidents or the personnel decisions of private companies, could perhaps be found in our culture that calls presidential authority the ‘great power’ and presidential contenders ‘hidden dragons’.” AP