Since 1948, the Constitution of the Republic of Korea has been amended nine times. In these decades, the country saw periods of being a democratic state and of being a dictatorship before once again turning into a democracy, which has become very stable in the decades since the last amendment in 1987. After more than 25 years, new calls for constitutional reform have emerged. These could include the addition of new fundamental rights and amendments to existing ones, a re-structuring of the political system as well as changes of the competences of the constitutional court. Fundamental rights have been more clearly defined through adjudication, but some open questions might still be decided through constitutional amendment - for instance concerning the permissibility of the death penalty. Also, provisions concerning conscriptions, a right to access to information or to asylum might be added to the constitutional text in the future. As far as the political system is concerned, suggestions include alterations to the role and competences of the president, whose powers are currently very extensive, but who cannot be re-elected. There have also been calls for turning to a bi-cameral parliamentary system. The role of the constitutional court is not very clearly defined by the constitution, so an amendment might be useful to delineate its competences as opposed to the other courts of the country - while some voices even call for abolishing the court altogether. It is clear that there are many paths that the constitution might take in the future, and one may learn from the experiences of other countries in order to choose one of these paths. At the same time, it is important to keep the social and cultural particularities of the country in mind.
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