Partnership for Sustainability: NGO and Community Participation in Lawmaking in South Korea = Partnership for Sustainability: NGO and Community Participation in Lawmaking in South Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper analyzes citizen participation in lawmaking in South Korea, particularly during the period of early 1990s through present. In a broader context, this is part of an effort to analyze the democratization of the political process from the perspectives of community decisionmaking in terms of democratic legitimacy. This paper focuses on the participatory dimension of sustainability, from constitutional law perspectives in a larger context. Particularly, this paper analyzes the institutional and procedural aspect of participation of NGOs and citizens in some of the exemplary instances of lawmaking in South Korea’s recent experience. NGO activities in South Korea were initiated as part of democratization movement, and became conspicuously expanded in the nation’s democratization context in the 1990s. Particularly since early 1990s, many NGOs and civil community in general in South Korea have been actively serving such role of participation and collaboration in policymaking and lawmaking, primarily by means of public interest litigation and proactive legislative initiatives. Such partnership for sustainability is due to diverse grounds, both domestic and international. Some of the areas where such voluntary NGO initiatives and lawmaking movement in South Korea have been particularly active include consumer protection, welfare, human rights protection for minorities including those with disabilities, gender equality, environmental protection and preservation, labor, and monitoring of the media, conglomerates, and legislative and judicial activities. South Korea’s NGOs have served as the triggering mechanism for institutional changes through changes in law and public policies from grassroots for maturing and implementing democracy, based upon their expertise in pertinent subject matters as well as their democratic legitimacy and representativeness. Such partnership for sustainability of its democracy in the form of proactive citizen participation in policymaking and lawmaking has further constitutional significance and ramifications in South Korea as the legislative process within its unicameral national legislature vests highly concentrated power and authority of lawmaking in intramural standing committees as opposed to the plenary session, thereby potentially subjecting the national legislative process to challenges of lack of deliberation under the ideal of representative democracy and criticisms of actively lobbying interest groups. This in turn demands even more urgently in South Korea a healthy partnership between governmental sector and civil sector in policymaking and lawmaking. A balance between institutionalization of such participation for the sake of stability and its spontaneity and voluntariness for the sake of further sustainability of democracy is the remaining challenge.