기본권 조항 개정의 쟁점
Issues on Revision of Fundamental Right Provisions
김명식
초록
This article deals with issues on constitutional revision, especially on revision points of fundamental right provisions. As we all know, in the history of the constitutional revision in South Korea, the nine constitutional revisions had been taken place, and their main subjects and concerns were changes of the governing structure related to presidential system, while issues on revision of fundamental right provisions were secondary or minor matters. Nowadays, because of the changes of constitutional environments, a lot of arguments on revising the Constitution have constantly been raised not by the people but by the political area. But in the fully developed democratical society, debates on constitutional revision should be leaded by the people as well as by the political area, I think. Although the people remain in a passive position in the process of constitutional revision, the people who have the right to render final approval on the constitutional revision should be able to understand and identify the main issues and contents of the constitutional revision. To accomplish this end, we have to know the importance of establishing a process of public consensus. Especially, among in the issues on constitutional revision, the most important issues should be those on revision of fundamental right provisons. The revision of fundamental right provisons has to go toward enhancing the normative power of the constitution and reflecting the results of the globalization, the advent of the information era, changes and diversification of the composition of the population, and multi-cultural social phenomena. For example, fundamental rights newly appeared through drastic changes of information and communication technology should be understood as a kind of fundamental rights deduced from the basic principles about fundamental rights.