[Yonhap News Photo]
SEOUL -- President Moon Jae-in's constitutional revision proposal calls for changing the current single five-year presidential term to a maximum of two successive four-year terms while significantly curtailing presidential powers, a senior aide said Thursday.
Cho Kuk, a senior presidential secretary for legal affairs, also made clear that, even if the Constitution is revised according to the government proposal, it does not apply to Moon and therefore he cannot seek re-election after his single five-year term ends in May 2022.
Changing the power structure is the central part of the constitutional revision amid calls for revising the current presidential system that has long been blamed for concentrating too much power in the president in a way prone to corruption.
The government's revision proposal calls for a package of measures aimed at curtailing what critics have often described as "emperor-like" presidential powers, including removing the symbolic reference to the president as the head of the state that comes from the highest law.
They also include ridding the president of the right to name the chief of the Constitutional Court and having the court's justices elect their chief among themselves; requiring the president to have his special pardon plans go through a review by an independent pardon committee; and strengthening the prime minister's powers by deleting the phrase that says the prime minister conduct his duties "under the orders of the president."
The proposal also calls for giving the National Assembly greater oversight rights.
Under the proposal, the parliament will be given the right to name three members of the nine-member Board of Audit and Inspection. So far, the president has named all nine members of the board. The proposal also calls for bolstering the parliament's legislative and budget oversight rights, Cho said.
Cho, however, rejected opposition calls to give the National Assembly the right to name or recommend the prime minister, saying it would be little different from a parliamentary cabinet system when a majority of people prefer the presidential system.
Currently, the president nominates the prime minister. The prime minister is officially the No. 2 official of the government, but the post has largely been symbolic without real powers as the president makes all important decisions.
If an opposition-controlled National Assembly is allowed to name the prime minister, Cho said, it would cause constant tension between the president and the prime minister, making it difficult to manage state affairs in a stable manner.
The proposal also calls for lowering the voting age to 18. The government plans to submit the proposal to the National Assembly on Monday. The current five-year single term was introduced, along with a direct presidential election system, when the Constitution was last revised in 1987 after decades of military-backed authoritarian rule. It was designed mainly to prevent the sitting president from seeking to remain in power after a single term.
(Yonhap)
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
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