Lee promises to back amendment to Constitution
Marking the 77th anniversary of the South Korea's Constitution on Thursday, President Lee Jae Myung expressed his commitment to a new amendment, stressing that a new amendment to the Constitution must be "citizen-centered."
In a Facebook post, Lee said a newly amended Constitution, which upholds the spirit of the Gwangju Uprising in May 1980, encompasses the greater fundamental rights of each citizen, the greater local autonomy and the curtailment of power through reforms "must be a compass to lead the way of South Korea."
The liberal president also thanked the people for overcoming the political crisis that stemmed from former President Yoon Suk Yeol's martial law declaration in December, within the boundaries of the Constitution.
South Korea last amended the Constitution about four decades ago, effective in 1987. It was the ninth amendment in the country since its foundation on Aug. 15, 1948.
Later on Thursday, Lee asked his secretaries to consider redesignating Constitution Day as a public holiday in a meeting he presided over at his office in Seoul.
Nearly two decades after South Korea removed Constitution Day, which falls on July 17 each year, from the list of public holidays, lawmakers have again pushed to designate the day as a full public holiday to shed light on the role of the Constitution in safeguarding democracy.
Since Lee's inauguration on June 4, Reps. Kwak Sang-eon of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and Kang Dae-sik of the main opposition People Power Party have each introduced revision bills aimed at adding Constitution Day to the list of public holidays, following its exclusion in 2008.
Kwak and nine other lawmakers of three liberal parties proposed the redesignation on June 13, suggesting it could "boost the domestic economy and guarantee people's right to rest," and at the same time uphold the spirit of the Constitution.
Kwak proposed a revision of the Act on Public Holidays to allow South Koreans to be granted the day off.
Of five national celebration days designated in South Korea, Constitution Day is the only among them that is not also designated as a public holiday.
On July 9, Kang and 10 other People Power Party members proposed a similar bill to revise the Act on Public Holidays, raising a need for the Constitution Day to be redesignated.
South Korea promulgated its first Constitution on July 17, 1949, and the day was designated as a holiday in 1950. The conservative Lee Myung-bak administration, however, delisted the day as a public holiday in 2008, amid calls to recover national productivity alongside the introduction of a five-day workweek in 2004.
According to a recent report by the National Assembly Research Service, there have been 17 bills so far designed to reinstate Constitution Day as a public holiday since 2008.
Constitution Day "holds great symbolic significance" in that a need to safeguard constitutional values has been in the limelight, and it therefore deserves to be redesignated as a public holiday, added the report released Monday. It also called for a social consensus on the matter, given that the redesignation could have significant socioeconomic impact on South Korea.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
14 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Probe into Yoon couple's 2022 influence-peddling intensifies
The special counsel team intensified its probe on Monday into former President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife Kim Keon Hee's alleged meddling in the People Power Party's candidate nomination process for the June 2022 elections. The team on Monday conducted a search and seizure at the home and office of Rep. Lee Jun-seok, who is now leader of the minor opposition Reform Party and was chair of the conservative People Power Party during the 2022 poll in which local elections and by-elections for empty parliamentary seats took place simultaneously. The investigation centers on claims that Yoon and his wife, through self-proclaimed political broker Myung Tae-kyun, influenced the nomination of former lawmaker Kim Young-sun, a member of the then-ruling People Power Party, for a by-election in June 2022 in exchange for Myung fabricating support for Yoon in polls when Yoon was running for president. According to the special counsel, Lee is considered a reference in the ongoing probe. Investigators are expected to review his role in a meeting on Feb. 29, 2024, at Chilbulsa Temple in Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province, where Myung, Kim Young-sun, Reform Party floor leader Rep. Chun Ha-ram and Lee were present. The meeting took place after Kim failed to secure the nomination of the People Power Party in the 2024 general election, in contrast to 2022, when she was nominated and ran in the by-election. The Reform Party leadership later rejected a request from Kim to nominate her. The raid came just one day after Lee was elected as the new head of the Reform Party on Sunday. Lee criticized the timing of the operation, calling it "suspicious" during a YouTube interview with local broadcaster Channel A. Lee pointed to the change in administration from former President Yoon, who was impeached and removed from office, to President Lee Jae Myung, who was elected in June to replace him. "I already clearly stated what I did and didn't say," he said, referring to his questioning by prosecutors last November. "Now that the investigative body has changed, maybe they want to verify more." Earlier on Monday, the Reform Party canceled its scheduled leadership meeting, denouncing the raid as politically motivated. "We cannot shake off the suspicion that this was a media stunt aimed at humiliating us," Chun said during a press briefing at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul. Chun stressed that the party had fully cooperated with investigators, adding that the raid on a lawmaker's office was excessive as the case involves matters that took place prior to Lee's election to the National Assembly in April 2022. Meanwhile, a separate case added further complexity to the situation. Choi Ho, a former Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly member and 2022 Pyeongtaek mayoral candidate, was found dead early Sunday in a mountainous area in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. Choi had been questioned in April as a witness in the probe into allegations that the Yoon couple intervened in the People Power Party's nomination process to make him a candidate without a primary in the 2022 local election. Choi, who ran for mayor of Pyeongtaek as a candidate of the People Power Party, lost the election. The special counsel said it had no direct contact with Choi in relation to the ongoing investigation.
Korea Herald
14 hours ago
- Korea Herald
S. Korea poised for Lee Jae Myung's formal inauguration ceremony on Liberation Day
South Korea is poised to hold an official appointment ceremony on Aug. 15 for President Lee Jae Myung, according to the Ministry of Interior and Safety on Monday. The ceremony for Lee, who assumed the role of head of state on July 4 immediately after his presidential election victory, will align with the 80th anniversary of National Liberation Day, when Korea was liberated from Imperial Japan's colonial rule in 1945. The ceremony is scheduled to take place at 8 p.m. at the Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul. It will follow the commemoration of National Liberation Day at 10 a.m. at the nearby Sejong Cultural Center. According to the Interior Ministry, the upcoming inauguration ceremony is designed to allow select participants to share their hopes and wishes with the president. The event will also highlight the concept of "popular sovereignty" under the Lee administration. The ministry said it would accept applications to participate in the inauguration ceremony online from Monday to noon on Friday. On the day of Lee's appointment on June 4, a ceremony was briefly held indoors at the National Assembly before some 300 guests.
Korea Herald
15 hours ago
- Korea Herald
North Korea not interested in talks with Seoul, Kim Jong-un's sister says
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister on Monday said that they are not interested in reviving talks with Seoul, in response to the Lee Jae Myung administration's efforts to mend ties with Pyongyang. 'We clarify once again the official stand that no matter what policy is adopted and whatever proposal is made in Seoul, we have no interest in it and there is neither a reason to meet nor an issue to be discussed with the ROK,' Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the ruling party's central committee, said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency. ROK is the acronym for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea. Kim Yo-jong's remarks referred to Lee's efforts to thaw inter-Korean ties and restore suspended dialogue channels with the North. The Lee administration has halted anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts along the border and repatriated six North Korean fishermen via the maritime border in the East Sea, after they had drifted into southern waters. It also asked South Korean family members of those abducted by the North to stop flying balloons filled with 'anti-Pyongyang' leaflets to the North. But the powerful sister brushed off such efforts and called the decision to halt the loudspeaker broadcasts a 'reversible turning back of what they should not have done in the first place.' She added that if Seoul expected it could reverse all its actions 'with a few sentimental words,' it would be a 'serious miscalculation.' Kim Yo-jong also lambasted Lee by saying that he 'is no different from his predecessor in blindly adhering to the South Korea-US alliance' and pursuing confrontation with the North. On Seoul's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's recent expression of hopes for Kim Jong-un's participation in the APEC summit in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, scheduled for October, the North Korean leader's sister called the move delusional. In response, South Korea's presidential office said in a statement that Seoul will continue to take necessary actions to ensure a Korean Peninsula free of hostility. This is aligned with the Lee administration's stance and goal to achieve peace without conflict, it added. Seoul's Unification Ministry interpreted Kim's remarks as a sign that Pyongyang is 'closely monitoring' the Lee administration's North Korea policy, the ministry's spokesperson, Koo Byoung-sam, told a press briefing. It also reflects the reality of 'the high walls of distrust' existing between the two Koreas. "The government will not waver due to each and every reaction from North Korea but will calmly and consistently pursue efforts to forge inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation and realize mutual peace on the Korean Peninsula," Koo said. Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, echoed the Unification Ministry's interpretation, saying that Kim's remarks reaffirmed the North's view of seeing inter-Korean ties as those between "two states hostile to each other.' It is also an intent to put pressure on the South and draw a reaction from Seoul, only 50 days after the launch of the new administration and almost immediately after Unification Minister Chung Dong-young was appointed last week. Kim Yo-jong's statement released Monday marks Pyongyang's first official statement on the Lee Jae Myung administration. In late 2023, Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as "two states hostile to each other, a shift from its previous unification goals and a turn towards a policy to view the South as a separate, hostile state.
