remarks by the honorable kim yong-joon president of the constitutional court
of the republic of korea at the 43rd plenary meeting of the european commission
for democracy through law
venice, italy
16 june 2000

mr. president, distinguished delegates,

i'm greatly honored to be here today at the 43rd plenary meeting of the
european commission for democracy through law, which has made
outstanding achievements in various fields under the lofty goal of achieving
democracy through law.

also taking this opportunity, i would like to convey my sincere gratitude to
all of you for approving the participation of the republic of korea to the
commission. for korea, joining the commission as an observer is a great
privilege and, at the same time, an opportunity to promote further its
constitutional adjudication system.

since its establishment as a republic in 1948, korea has firmly inscribed
basic individual rights in its constitution based on the principle of democracy
and the rule of law, and developed a consitutional review system to ensure
the basic rights are upheld. for four decades before the establishment of the
constitutional court in 1988, such organs as the constitutional committee or
the supreme court were charged with carrying out constitutional adjudication.

however, under the authoritarian political regimes up till late 1980's,
constitutional adjudication could not function properly and the spirit of the
constitution was undermined. this, in turn, led to the infringement of basic
individual rights. during the forty years up to the establishment of the
current constitutional court in september 1988, there were only 5 case in
which statutes were held to be unconstitutional.

in 1987, a nation-wide demand for greater democracy resulted in revision of
the constitution. at that time, one of the main issues was the designation of
an organ which would be empowered to administer constitutional adjudication.
it was ultimately decided that a new constitutional court would be set up.
this was due in part to the belief that the constitutional court system is
more effective in promoting basic individual rights and in part to the
necessity not to embroil ordinary courts in cases of political nature.

hence, a new constitutional court was born. since its inception on
september lst 1988, it has adjudicated over 5,000 cases and rendered decisions
declaring unconstitutionality of statutes on more than 300 occasions. the
spirit of the constitution, such as protection of basic individual rights and
control over the state action has come alive and thus we can say the
constitution has indeed become a 'living' supreme norm. now citizens
perceive and seek constitutional adjudication as an instrument to secure their
individual rights, and government agencies must now bear in mind the
constitutionality of their actions.

mr. president,

korea still has a tremendous task of achieving reunification. i believe that
this commission has successfully provided legal counsel to former socialist
european countries to help them deal with constitutional and legal questions
in the process of democratization. it seems inevitable that korea will come
across many complex legal issues related to reunification in the future, for
example, the enactment of a constitution for unified korea. in this respect,
we expect full support of the commission.

aside from the issue of reunification, i feel that korea has much to gain
from the precious experience of the commission in promoting constitutional
adjudication. there can be no break in korea's unrelenting endeavor to attain



greater democracy and rule of law. korea is striving to build on and improve
its existing constitutional adjudication system. for this purpose, we are
studying the features of the advanced european model which could be
integrated with the historical values unique to korea.

mr. president,

i look forward to forging a lasting and close cooperative relationship with
the commission, considering that we have much to learn from each other's
experiences and wisdom. we hope the commission will continue to watch
with interest the activities of the constitutional court of korea. as for us,
we will certainly do our utmost to contribute to the work of the commission.

thank you.