Talks of an imminent need for constitutional revision are spreading among political circles, with National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun in the vanguard by repeating his calls for the amendment on Thursday.

While political parties remain divided in stance, there appears to be growing awareness that the Constitution that was last amended in 1987 fails to reflect today’s social, economic and political realities of South Korea.

“Constitutional revision is no longer a subject of debate, but a matter of will,” said the new speaker in a press conference.

This reconfirmed his previous remarks during the legislature’s opening session on Monday, when he vowed to lay the foundation for constitutional revision.
“(Political circles) should break free from their narrow visions based on power relations and create a constitution that may embrace the social changes during the past 30 years and suggest a direction for the nation’s future,” Chung said.

He thereby pledged to “wrap up” the issue within the 20th parliamentary term, which is to end in May 2020.

Chung’s resolution fueled the years-long suggestion that the 30-year basic law fails to establish the power division frame required in a modern democratic society.

South Korea’s Constitutional Law was last revised in the wake of the June 10 Democratization Uprising to adopt a direct election system and to reinstate the authority of the parliament.

Despite what it achieved back then, the basic law has also been blamed for granting excessive power to the president and limiting that of the legislature, thus intensifying the state power imbalance.

Chung, whose affiliation to The Minjoo Party of Korea has been temporarily held off due to his position, is not the first parliamentary speaker to address constitutional revision.

His conservative predecessors Chung Ui-hwa, Kang Chang-hee and Kim Hyung-o have also raised the issue during their respective terms, but the debate was always overshadowed by other urgent issues such as economic revitalization and elections.

Changes, however, have recently been detected, not only in general public sentiment and the liberal opposition circles, but also in parts of the ruling conservative Saenuri camp.

A number of influential politicians, including Gyeonggi Province Governor Nam Kyung-pil, have been advocating the revision. Rep. Chong Jong-sup, a Saenuri lawmaker elected in Daegu and a former professor of constitutional law at Seoul National University, also urged for a consensus on the issue within this year.

Their stance resonated with the recent public sentiment as shown in the public survey conducted by local pollster Realmeter on Thursday, in which 69.8 percent of respondents said that they approved of constitutional revision.

However, parties still stand at odds over the details of power restructuring.

Saenuri members supporting the revision tend to prefer a semi-presidential system, in which the president acts as head of state and a parliament-elected prime minister steers domestic state affairs. The system, which places focus on the diplomatic capacity of the president, is expected to be to the advantage of U.N. Secretary-General and former Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon in making his bid in the 2017 presidential election.

The opposition camp, led by the Minjoo Party, is divided between the semi-presidential system and a parliamentary system. The latter empowers the legislature to name a prime minister as chief of the executive branch.

Woo Yoon-keun, the incoming parliamentary secretary-general and close aide to Speaker Chung, suggested a referendum during the April by-election next year, asking for the public response on the revision.

While the runner-up opposition People’s Party refrained from stating its stance, floor leader Rep. Park Jie-won said that the given debate should no longer be put off, underscoring the need for Cheong Wa Dae to join the fray.

“This is now or never to discuss constitutional revision,” Park said Thursday.

“President Park Geun-hye should pave the way for the issue.”

Cheong Wa Dae, however, continued to express dissent over the change of the state structure.

“Our disposition has not changed,” said spokesperson Jung Youn-kuk when answering reporters’ questions on the Blue House’s view on the revision.

President Park Geun-hye, in a meeting with local media chiefs in late April, had described constitutional revision as an “economic black hole” that diverts social attention away from urgent economic agendas.

By Bae Hyun-jung(tellme@heraldcorp.com)