National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik called on the People Power Party to cooperate on a constitutional amendment that would strengthen parliamentary control over the president's martial law authority, ahead of a plenary vote on the measure. Woo emphasized that the revision aims to "prevent a second Yoon Suk-yeol" and said "this opportunity cannot be missed."
In a post on his social media account Wednesday, Woo said, "A plenary vote on the constitutional amendment jointly proposed by 187 lawmakers is expected within days, but its passage remains uncertain as the People Power Party is opposing it as a party line."
"Despite attempts to apologize for and distance themselves from the emergency martial law, it is deeply regrettable that they oppose a constitutional revision that would prevent anyone from even dreaming of an illegal emergency martial law," he said. "I ask People Power Party lawmakers to join my proposal to cross the river of insurrection together through this constitutional revision."
The amendment's core would convert the National Assembly's constitutional "power to lift" a presidential emergency martial law into a "prior approval authority," and would immediately suspend the effect of martial law upon a parliamentary vote. Woo described this as "the core of the constitutional revision to prevent a second Yoon Suk-yeol."
"Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo threatened democracy with emergency martial law, and many citizens lost their lives," Woo said. "Even after judicial punishment was carried out, we felt reassured that surely there would not be another unconstitutional and illegal emergency martial law. But in the end, South Korea again experienced a national crisis when it faced Yoon Suk-yeol and the Dec. 3 emergency martial law."
He continued, "Jun Kwang-hoon, who was released on bail yesterday, took the stage at a Gwanghwamun rally and claimed that 'martial law can be declared when the country is in trouble.'" He added, "We are living in an era where we cannot guarantee that there will never again be a second or third Yoon Suk-yeol with extremist thinking."
Woo also wrote, "If we fail to fix this even after going through what the National Assembly has experienced, a time may come when we will beat the ground in grief. The ruling and opposition parties may clash over political disputes, but when thinking about the future of the nation, we must be of one mind on at least this matter."
On the 3rd of last month, 187 lawmakers from six parliamentary parties including the Democratic Party submitted a constitutional amendment containing provisions to tighten requirements for martial law declarations and to specify the Buma Democratic Protests and the May 18 Democratization Movement in the constitution's preamble. The six parties excluding the People Power Party plan to process the constitutional amendment at a plenary session on the 7th of this month, but the People Power Party is opposing it as a "hasty revision."
