Public law permissible limits of parliamentary privileges- Including the discussion of dropping privileges -
Authors:   Korea Anti-Corruption Law Association, Choi Yongjeon , Shin Bong-Ki 
Published: September 2022

Our Constitution stipulates the president's criminal privilege (Article 84), the non-arrest privilege of the National Assembly member (Article 44), and immunity Privilege (Article 45), which are privileges for direct constitutional institutions' governing functions. The immunity and non-arrest privileges constitutionally granted by the Constitution are being criticized as indulgences for the politics of revelation or the bulletproof National Assembly that protects criminals. There is pressure to be However, since these powers and privileges are premised on the function of the National Assembly, depending on the case, individual members cannot renounce these privileges on their own, and their existence itself is so important that it cannot be restricted even by a resolution of the parliament.
In the 16th presidential election around 2003, the attendance of lawmakers involved in the presidential slush fund case of candidates from both the opposition parties was postponed due to the convening of an extraordinary session of the National Assembly before the prosecution. Due to this incident, the privilege of non-arrest left a stigma as a tool to the 'Bulletproof National Assembly'. At the Constituent Assembly of the 1st Republic, a member of the National Assembly, who also served as the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, was recommended to resign on the grounds that he had a different view on the president's grain purchase policy, and the arrest agreement was subject to him. There was also a positive case in which Congress protected a member of the parliament from government oppression by rejecting the arrest motion.
The immunity privilege does not conform to equity with the general public by sculpting responsibility for criminal acts such as insults or defamation, but it can also be a powerful device to protect lawmakers from illegal government oppression, such as the case of Yoo Seong-hwan. .
By the time of the 21st National Assembly's legislative period, all three motions for the arrest of a member of the National Assembly submitted for general crimes unrelated to their legislative activities were approved. This shows a fairly positive progress in that the lawmakers do not wrap themselves around and think about objective legitimacy. However, in general, the legislative activities of the National Assembly members are still being criticized for not reaching the level of the public, and they are being forced to lay down the contents of the various powers that have been given to them.
In this situation, in order to systematically review the privileges and privileges of the members of the National Assembly and find ways to improve them, the powers and privileges of the members of the National Assembly will be reviewed, various methods for releasing the privileges will be introduced, and the discussion on the release of the privileges of members of the National Assembly will be briefly discussed. and (II), the most representative privileges of non-arrest and immunity, which are the most representative privileges of the National Assembly, are analyzed (III), and finally, measures to improve the privileges of the National Assembly are presented by dividing them into dropping privileges, non-arrest privileges, and immunity (IV).