Last month South Korea celebrated Constitution Day. Constitution Day in Korean is Jehunjul (제헌절). This national holiday celebrates the South Korean Constitution. The South Korean constitution was first drafted in 1948, but there have been revisions to the constitution ever since. The South Korean constitution lays out a basic framework for the Korean government and lists the basic freedoms of the people. Chapter 2 of the Constitution is explicitly dedicated to listing the individual rights of the South Korean people. For example chapter two basically states that if someone is accused, they must have a right to an attorney.

Although the rights of individuals are protected, there is an additional bill not part of the constitution that may overwrite the freedoms listed in chapter two. This bill is called the guk ga boan bup (국가 보안법) or the National Security Act. This bill has been controversial. The bill states that anyone that tries to overthrow the government or distribute materials against the South Korean government may have his/her individual rights taken away. Exactly what constitutes an ‘overthrow’ of the government is unclear. Recently the government has come under fire for imprisoning a couple of bloggers for putting up anti-government webpages.

For these reasons, the Constitution of South Korea is held in high esteem. The Constitution clearly states that Korea is a jayu minjujuk gibonjilso (자유민주적 기본질서) or liberal democracy. The Constitution secures the right to form associations and to carry out ‘collective action’. For Koreans, collective action has meant demo (데머) or demonstrations against government policies. These last few years it seems that the citizens of South Korea have brought it upon themselves to put it to frequent use. This is a huge departure from the dictatorship of the 1960s-1980s and the autocratic emperor system where individuals were usually killed or imprisoned for speaking out against the government or king.