The Korea Times
President Lee Jae Myung called for a phased constitutional reform, Wednesday, a day before a scheduled National Assembly vote on a ruling party-led bill primarily aimed at toughening conditions for declaring martial law. Speaking at a weekly Cabinet meeting, the president suggested a step-by-step approach, noting that the decades-old Constitution falls short of meeting today’s level of democracy, while a sweeping overhaul would nonetheless be burdensome. “Korea has undergone significant changes in political, economic and social aspects, yet the Constitution has remained virtually unchanged for over 40 years,” Lee said, highlighting that it was last revised in 1987. He compared Korea’s development to a body that has outgrown its clothes, using the metaphor to illustrate how the Constitution no longer fits the country’s realities. “With the current Constitution, it is difficult to fully guarantee the level of democracy in Korea today, the lives of its people, and the future of the nation … Our body has grown, but the clothes no longer fit — shouldn’t we fix the clothes?
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