Moon Hyungbae Says on Blog: "No Way to Resolve Conflicts Between President and National Assembly"

Introducing the Book "The Moment of the Constitution"

Moon Hyungbae, former Acting Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court who delivered the ruling on the impeachment trial of former President Yoon Sukyeol, left a message after the verdict stating, "Conflicts between the president and the National Assembly arise easily, but there is no way to resolve them."

According to the legal community on the 24th, on April 11, Moon introduced the book "The Moment of the Constitution" by Park Hyuk, a research fellow at the Democratic Research Institute, on his blog "Law Stories for Good People," and quoted passages that left a strong impression on him.

He wrote, "The aspect that Eugene O, the expert commissioner, points out as the biggest problem in the presidential system is not the risk of dictatorship," and added, "Rather, it is the fact that conflicts between the president and the National Assembly arise easily, but there is no way to resolve them."

Moon Hyungbae, Acting Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, and Lee Miseon, Justice, are entering the Constitutional Court in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on the 18th to attend the retirement ceremony. Photo by Yonhap News

This book covers the process of drafting the Constitution as recorded in the proceedings of the Constituent National Assembly from June to July 1948. It was also selected as the January recommended book by Pyeongsan Bookstore, operated by former President Moon Jaein in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province.

Moon completed his six-year term as a Constitutional Court Justice and retired on the 18th. In his farewell address, he said, "It is often said that in countries with a presidential system, when conflicts between the president and the National Assembly escalate and political solutions through dialogue and compromise fail, there is no mechanism to break the deadlock."

He continued, "However, according to the design of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, the Constitutional Court can make decisions in procedures such as competence disputes that are grounded in facts and validity, and a path to resolve deadlocks is opened when constitutional institutions respect these decisions," emphasizing, "The constitutional path based on checks and balances will be further strengthened by respect for the decisions of the Constitutional Court."