Constitutional amendment to limit martial law power fails as PPP lawmakers boycott the vote

A constitutional amendment bill, the first in 39 years, was brought before the National Assembly plenary session on the 7th, but the vote was declared “invalid due to failure to meet the quorum” because too few lawmakers participated. National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik said he would convene another plenary session at 2 p.m. on the 8th to hold a second vote on the amendment.

For the amendment to pass, it needed the approval quorum of two-thirds of all sitting lawmakers, or 191 members. However, every lawmaker from the People Power Party, which had adopted an official party position opposing the bill, boycotted the vote. A total of 178 lawmakers from six parties — the Democratic Party of Korea, the Rebuilding Korea Party, the Progressive Party, the Reform Party, the Basic Income Party, and the Social Democratic Party — took part in the vote. Speaker Woo said, “I sincerely apologize to the people that the process ended in failure here in the National Assembly before it could even proceed to a national referendum.”

The amendment includes provisions to add the spirit of the Busan-Masan Democratic Uprising and the May 18 Democratic Uprising to the preamble of the Constitution. It also contains clauses introducing National Assembly approval for a president’s declaration of emergency martial law, upgrading the National Assembly’s power to demand the lifting of martial law into an actual power to lift martial law, and explicitly stating the state’s duty to promote balanced regional development.

After announcing the plan for a revote, Woo appealed to People Power Party lawmakers to seriously consider participating, saying, “After the country suffered such great pain and chaos from the December 3 emergency martial law, this amendment seeks to change the Constitution so that such a thing never happens again. If you do not participate in the vote, you will become historical sinners who sympathized with and abetted the December 3 emergency martial law.”

Earlier, People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk held an on-site Supreme Council meeting in front of the former presidential office Cheong Wa Dae and said, “The constitutional amendment the Democratic Party is trying to pass is a political scheme designed to prolong Lee Jae-myung’s dictatorship.”