President’ Roh’s NLS Remarks Receive Mixed Reviews

President Roh Moo-hyun’s expression of his support for the repeal of the National Security Law has received mixed reactions from the legislative community and civil-society groups.

Overall, the reaction from the legislative community can be summed up as: “The president should have restrained himself from such remarks.” Some believed the recent rulings from the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court perturbed him.

Legal Community—

“This is not a legislative topic the president can talk about,” a department director of the Seoul High Court said. “These are not the remarks coming from the mouth of the president, who should do business according to the Constitution and the law.” He continued, saying, “It is self-contradictory for the president, who should be the best recipient of the benefits of the current constitutional system, to relegate the law that maintains the very system as a bad law. It is frustrating because the president, who controls the legislature, now ignores the judiciary and acts at will.

“It won’t be a nice sight if the president refutes the highest organizations of the judiciary, the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court, head-on,” said a senior prosecutor, “It is not appropriate for the president, who heads the administration, to comment in favor of the NSL’s repeal, which may affect legislature activities.”

“Political considerations must not end in a regrettable affair,” a senior prosecutor at the Seoul Prosecutor’s Office said. Another prosecutor, who is responsible for public security cases, said, “The president’s remarks are unconvincing from the point of view that there should be no legislative vacuum.”

However, another judge on the Seoul High Court said, “The remarks are something the president is entitled to make.” He continued, saying, “Actually, the NSL should change. And this is the issue the National Assembly should debate about and decide on.”

Legislative Activists –

“He said it is time to discard a relic. But the word “discard” should refer to something which has exhausted its use,” said attorney Lee Seung-hwan, a member of Lawyers Who Think About the Constitution. “The repeal of the NSL is like not sheathing a sword, but more like breaking it.”

“Given the changes in North-South Relations, the NSL should be repealed and it will unlikely trouble national security,” said attorney Kim Kap-bae, the legislative director of the Korea Bar Association, “The judiciary should discard ideological approaches [to] and Cold-War thinking [about the NSL].”

Civil-Society Groups–

Civil-society group reactions are polarized, depending on their political leanings. “In the environment highlighted by a North-South confrontation along the DMZ, the NSL’s repeal will be tantamount to us opening the gates alone,” said Cho Joong-keun, a director of the Citizens’ Conference for a Rightful Society.

“The repeal of the NSL is the demand which the whole of civil society has been steadily pressing for,” said Kim Ki-sik, director of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy. “The repeal is the measure needed to be taken for the reconciliatory era of the North and the South.”

Soo-Jung Shin woogija@donga.com crystal@donga.com