President Yoon Suk-Yeol, while campaigning for the presidency in 2021, appeared on televised debates with the Chinese character for “King” written on his palm. However, as the very first decision as president, Yoon moved the headquarters of the government of the Blue House to Yongsan – supposedly to reduce the “imperial presidency” and the sense of “inaccessibility” represented by the first.
Relocation was a sequence of budget, logistics and security disasters and the majority of South Koreans were against. However, Yoon advanced – because he could. It was the first of the many cases where the South Koreans saw how its predilections won public will. Throughout his mandate, what people thought and his approval notes did not matter to him. “I need to do what should be done even if my approval ratings were 1%”, Yoon said.
Yoon corresponds to the characteristics and practices described by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., an American historian, in his book “The imperial presidency. “Although Schlesinger’s book talks about Richard Nixon, there are many horses between the former President of the United States and Yoon. Like Nixon, Yoon sought” President power “rather than” power to the people “. He harassed and managed the press. He built strong and politicized staff. disdained the legislative body and took political opposition as a personal enmity.
With her tarpaulin group, Yoon has taken a whole new level of Schlesinger’s concern about “a conception of the spacious and peremptory presidential power that it implies a radical transformation of traditional politics”.
The South Koreans have learned of the hard time that there is a lot of space so that a single president burns the functioning of the country, or in the case of Yoon, to adjust everything to his taste and overthrow democracy overnight. Indeed, the Constitution and the statutes of South Korea devote too much power to the presidency.
Decades of military dictatorship have left the heritage of a powerful executive. The president monopolizes administrative decisions. They have the last word on the appointment of some 10,000 government employees. In accordance with the Constitution, only the posts of Prime Minister and the head of the audit and inspection council require confirmation of the legislature after the president’s appointment. (Compare this to some 1,300 jobs need Confirmation of the Senate in the United States.)
The president actually controls the prosecutor’s office, the police, the intelligence service and the tax service, giving rise to unbalanced sanctions and selective justice. The efforts of the National Assembly to monitor and supervise administrative weapons face structural deficiencies.
The president alone exercises budgetary power over some $ 400 billion, while the presidential decrees and regulations prevail over local orders. In addition, the central government monopolizes funding in the rest of the country. The president’s tentacles also deeply reach civic life thanks to their appointment of leaders of national universities, the Communication Commission, the Civil Rights Committee, the Board of Commerce and Finance, among others.
Essentially, everything escapes from the president.
When so many jobs and so much money depend on the presidential office, the South Korean policy and agencies have developed a particular tendency to formulate policies outside the official framework for the separation of powers and institutional independence. They read between the lines to stay in favor of the executive, which lends another dimension to the presidential power in the unofficial and deprived field of decision -making. In factThe ministers are figures and the bureaucrats put their palpors at the presidential office and to the president’s secretaries in a distorted chain of command. And obviously, the powerful political party listens to the president, not their voters, not to mention the audience as a whole.
Even in the legislative arena, the presidential power is enormous. In most cases, a presidential veto is enough to kill a bill; The two -thirds parliamentary majority required to replace a veto is rarely affected. To top it all, the president’s prerogative to declare martial law or lower emergency orders can only be revoked after the event by a majority vote in the Legislative Assembly. There is no mechanism to check these prerogatives before the event.
Over the past two and a half years, the South Koreans have seen the essence and the danger of this imperial presidency: the executive and the military being full of the president’s lacans, the awkward manipulation of the administration of major problems, the unauthorized knowledge of the president mixing national affairs and press freedom. During all this, the Legislative Assembly had little capacity to retaliate, which fueled public exasperation and the request chain of the dismissal of the Democratic Party of the opposition (DP) (one of the few mechanisms by which the Legislative Assembly can verify the executive power). This in turn stoké the fury of Yoon, who manifested himself terribly in the attempt to rescue.
It is not surprising that after these events, calls develop for a constitutional modification to rethink the system of presidency and decision of South Korea. In Gallup’s walking survey64% of South Koreans said they wanted a shorter four-year presidential term. In the current state of things, the presidency of South Korea is a single five -year period. He raised two problems. First, voters must wait too long until they can make a judgment on the president. Second, the prospect of any second term allows the president to behave without responsibility. The need for solid performance and decent approval ratings disappears.
Regarding the reform of the government system, many suggestions have been blindfolded. A parliamentary system resembling that of the United Kingdom has gained ground. The Head of Government and the Cabinet would derive members of the political party or from a party coalition which controls the Legislative Assembly. The legislator could adopt a vote without confidence, on which the government should resign and reorganize, or trigger a general election.
Another proposed model comes from the double executive system of Finland. The president is said to be in charge of foreign policy and national defense, while the Prime Minister manages internal policy. A convincing mechanism of dilution of the presidential power would be to ensure that an elected president establishes the long -term plans of the country and the rights to exercise veto and rejection of the National Assembly, and to have a Prime Minister appointed by the Legislative Assembly directs the affairs of the State.
For the moment, there is a consensus on the need for a system where the legislative assembly could have more authority on the statutory instruments, the budget and the audit of the government. The establishment of an independent constitutional body to manage judicial and prosecutor also received biparisan support.
However, those who direct the polls for the next president of South Korea, such as Lee Jae-Myung, the head of the DP, and Kim Moon-Soo, the Minister of Labor, are reluctant to Broaching Constitutional Reform. Naturally as well; The more someone is likely to become president, the less the limiting appearances of presidential power.
Other presidential aspirants – in particular from the Power Power Party in power – call for a special clause to limit the next presidential term to three years. Their pretext is to save money by aligning the presidential elections on the general elections. The real reason is to hinder Lee because it is most likely to become the next president.
They also require a reform of the presidential privilege against prosecution so that it only applies to the actions committed during a presidential mandate. Again, this request has Lee in mind, because it has some pending trials above his head. Under the current law, Lee would avoid the indictment on one of these cases in progress once elected president.
Perceive against This “should now be the time to overcome the betrayal of Yoon” and argued that the discussion of the constitutional reform at present only benefits the PPP. Indeed, the eventful discourse on constitutional reform somewhat explains the personal role of Yoon in the political disaster. He also moves the fires of the imperfections of Yoon and the PPP by redirecting attention to Lee’s criminal luggage and by fear of the way Lee would behave as president without a constitutional amendment.
As for Kim, being involved in the timers of constitutional collage points could cost him his head among the contenders for the PPP, because the preferences and opinions of voters differ considerably on this issue. And of course, there is no practical reason to accept a three -year mandate shortened as a solid candidate.
In another irony, Yoon implored the Constitutional Court at the end of February to reintegrate it so that it could “Modify the Constitution without worrying about the rest of my mandate.” The fact that only the person without losing anything can speak comfortably about a constitutional amendment speaks volumes about the turtle and the risk that it is.