소위원회 제도와 의사공개의 원칙

Abstract

It’s hard to reconcile what people want with what the representatives do under the representative democracy. Therefore, the article 50 of the Constitution of Korea says, “Sessions of the National Assembly shall be open to the public.”, which means that the proceedings of the review of legislative bills should be open to the public. This is to realize responsible politics through monitoring and criticism by the people, making all the procedures transparent.BRBR The principle of open sessions of the National Assembly has been in the Constitution since 1948. From the 6th National Assembly, the committees took over the review of the legislative bills which used to be dealt in the Assembly Plenary Session. After then, there have been some controversies over the meaning of the article 50 of the Constitution, especially whether the “Sessions of the National Assembly” should cover the subcommittee sessions or not. Even though it is now considered as common view that the sessions of the article 50 of the Constitution should include the subcommittee sessions, there still is a problem. The article 57 of the National Assembly law says, “Sessions of the subcommittees shall be open to the public. Provided, That when there is a decision, they may be closed.” This results in a wide range of the congressional autonomy, which can lead to the invasion to the rights-to-know of the people and make the principle of open sessions of the National Assembly nothing but a name.BRBR First of all, this study is going to explore the committee system and the subcommittee system of Korea and the United States, analyzing out political reality that the principle doesn’t work properly. It will be followed by the meaning and history of the principle of open sessions of the National Assembly in Korea and the Constitutional Court’s decision related to this principle. Finally, it is going to make the reasons clear why the sessions and the minutes of the subcommittees should be open to the public, after an overview of other country’s legislation.