國會議員 免責特權의 範圍와 限界 그리고 改善方案

Abstract

With the development of modern parliamentary institutions, the privilege of speech has been established as the privilege for preserving legislative independence and autonomy. Especially, the main object of privilege is to protect the right of the national assembly, and its members to enable them to carry out their constitutional functions effectively, against outside interference. It is said that the privilege of speech is one of the cornerstones of parliamentary democracy, or so essential to the rights of the people. However, recently the reappraisal and restriction of privilege of speech has been debated according to the abuse of privilege of speech by assemblyman. Because the privilege of speech is not unlimited, it is used to take within limited extent. If the privilege of speech is abused, the legislative activity of opposition will be seriously restricted. As the way of restriction of the privilege of speech, there are legislative control, self-regulation, political control, strategic control, etc. And in order to establish a real parliament democracy, the national assembly and its members themselves must make a effort to ensure their own privilege. Above all, I think it is desirable that national assembly resolves the problems of the privilege of speech for itself by strengthening stature and function of National Assembly Special Committee on Ethics.