Debate on Constitution

Politicians should not monopolize revising basic laws

A country needs to revise its Constitution once in a while to better reflect the changing social and political situations. So it’s natural a majority of Korean lawmakers support amending the Constitution, which was last revised 23 years ago.

What defies our understanding, however, is why these politicians are always talking only about the power system, such as changing presidential tenure from a single five-year term to two four-year terms, or introducing the ``dual executive system,” in which the president mainly handles external affairs, including diplomacy, while the premier takes charge of economic and other domestic matters.

Such being the case, political leaders’ views on constitutional revision change from time to time, while their words and deeds go separate ways.

For instance, Reps. Park Geun-hye and Sohn Hak-kyu, the two leading presidential hopefuls representing the governing and opposition camps, respectively, say they both are in favor of introducing the two four-year terms, but not in 2012 when they are in the most advantageous positions under the current single-term system.

President Lee Myung-bak also commented ― once again ― on this issue in his Liberation Day speech on Aug. 15, noting the president’s power is too big and needs to be dispersed somewhat.

Rivals immediately turned down the seemingly self-sacrificing presidential gesture: Rep. Park said it was a move to prolong his or his followers’ influence even after the five-year term is over; Rep. Sohn went further, attacking it as a ploy to prolong the governing party’s grip on power. Probably embarrassed by these unwelcome responses, Lee ordered his aides to stop the discussion and focus on the preparations for the G20 summit.

We don’t think it should necessarily go like this. If the President really meant to change the Constitution for the nation, he should have first asked the people’s views, not those of politicians, and started not with the power structure but with more fundamental socio-political issues, ranging from streamlining the currently too frequent elections to better protection of basic rights and individuals’ privacy, the tardiness of which is driving far too many people to the Constitutional Court for fresh interpretation.

Those who call for postponing the constitutional debate have their reasons because, once ignited, the issue will burn up all others, including the economy and even security issues, given we Koreans’ overzealous interests in politics.

Yet the constitutional revision was the pledge of the 18th-term National Assembly but has been put off because of the 2008 to 2010 financial crisis. Moreover, shouldn’t it be time for Korea to be able to pursue political and economic and the domestic and foreign issues separately but simultaneously?

President Lee can and should instruct the launch of at least a discussion panel ― preferably a bipartisan one ― for constitutional revision right away.