S. Korean Lawmakers OK Democratic Reform

The National Assembly voted Monday to approve the framework for transforming South Korea into a democracy.

By a vote of 254 to 4, the assembly approved sweeping amendments aimed at stripping authoritarian powers from the constitution that President Chun Doo Hwan imposed under martial law in 1980.

For the first time in South Korea’s 39-year history, the reforms were worked out in negotiations between the ruling party and the major opposition parties. When the constitution was overhauled on previous occasions, the changes were drawn up and approved unilaterally by the government.

The amendments approved Monday will be submitted to the voters in a national referendum scheduled for Oct. 27. Overwhelming approval is expected.

“The seed planted in the June 29 declaration has flowered,” said Chung Suk Mo, secretary general of the ruling Democratic Justice Party. He referred to the announcement by Roh Tae Woo, the party’s nominee for president, who put an end to 18 days of protest demonstrations across the country by promising to abandon authoritarian rule and to embrace democracy.

Approval of the constitutional amendments marked South Korea’s first major step in the shift toward democracy. Authoritarian laws dealing with the press, labor and elections have yet to be changed, and as many as 1,000 political prisoners remain in jail.

Lee Chul Seung, a longtime opposition lawmaker who is a member of the New Korea Democratic Party, led two other members of the tiny opposition group in voting against the amendments.

Favor Parliamentary System

The three said they favor the parliamentary system of government rather than the presidential system. A fourth legislator, Lim Choon Won, an independent, said he voted against the amendments because the government has not yet released the prisoners that it jailed for opposing the parliamentary system that Chun had insisted on until June 29.

Three assemblymen abstained and 11 were absent.

With the amendments, the constitution would provide for direct election of a president with dramatically curbed powers. The president would be limited to a single five-year term.

The election, which would give voters their first chance in 16 years to cast ballots directly for a chief executive, is to be held by Dec. 20.

No longer would the president have the power to issue emergency decrees with the same legal power as the constitution. Nor would he have the power to dissolve the National Assembly and to appoint judges without approval of the National Assembly.

The National Assembly, a unicameral body, would be empowered to audit government expenditures and to investigate all functions of the administration.

Press censorship and licensing of publications, as well as arrest, search and seizure without a warrant issued by a judge, would be banned. Police would be required to inform the relatives of anyone they arrest. Suspects would be guaranteed the right of legal counsel and arraignment in court.

University autonomy, a minimum wage system and workers’ rights to organize, engage in collective bargaining and strike would be guaranteed.

A preamble to the constitution declares that the government adopts “the ideology of the April 19, 1960, student revolution against dictatorship” and orders that the military, which twice in the last 26 years has carried out coups d’etat, “observe neutrality in political affairs.”

In another development Monday, a group of respected leaders issued a statement supporting the establishment of a new daily newspaper.

Among the signers were Cardinal Stephen Kim, head of the 2-million-member Roman Catholic Church in Korea; Kim Ok Gil, former president of Ewha Women’s University and former minister of education; Moon Ik Hwan, chairman of the Alliance of Mass Movements for Democracy and Unification; Ham Sok Hun, a well-known dissident, and 20 other scholars, authors and civic leaders.

‘Straight News’

They took the unusual action in support of a move by journalists--purged by Chun in 1980--to set up a newspaper “to meet the desire of the people who want to read straight news.” A new newspaper is badly needed, they said.

Their statement was issued amid mounting criticism that the established news media, television stations in particular, are biased in their coverage of the presidential campaigning.

Two presidential aspirants, Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung, leaders of the opposition Reunification Democratic Party, have charged that the mass media are paying undue attention to Roh, the government party candidate, while distorting or minimizing news of opposition activities.

The purged journalists organizing the new newspaper said they will have a meeting of 1,000 promoters and will sell shares to the public in the near future.

Meanwhile, the Christian Broadcasting Corp. announced that it will resume news broadcasts and advertising next Monday for the first time since Nov. 25, 1980, when Chun banned news and advertisements from the radio network operated by Christian churches.

Since 1980, the network has been forced to rely on government subsidies and donations from churches to finance its broadcasts, which were limited by government fiat to programs of a religious nature.