A Constitutional Approach to the Current Superintendent Election System for the Development of Local Education Autonomy
Authors:   Korean Constitutional Law Asscciation, YANG TAEGUN 
Published: March 2024

Introducing the “running mate system of governors and superintendents of education” has now become a big issue in relation to the superintendent of education election system. The government seems to be in favor of legislating into this system and is rushing to introduce it. However, what is overlooked in this movement is “consistency of a system”.
The current direct election superintendent of education system was introduced in 2006 after identifying the successful results of the direct presidential election system introduced in 1987 by the current Constitution. However, as political party intervention was prohibited due to the “political neutrality(or impartiality) of education” stipulated in Article 31 of the Constitution, an unpopular and problematic form of election system was established as it is now.
In terms of constitutional theory, the political neutrality of education stipulated in Article 31 of the Constitution, does not necessarily seem to provide inevitable reasons for a political party intervention to be banned in the election of the superintendents of education.
First, in comparison with the adjacent constitutional provisions such as the political neutrality of the military(Article 5) or the political neutrality of public officials(Article 7), and second, in light of the Article 37 (2) of the Constitution, which stipulates the proportional principle of maximum guarantee of basic rights, proportional and stepped constitutional approach could be justified. In other words, the superintendents of education are in charge of educational affairs based on the ideology of decentralization, and if the governors do not have a big problem in realizing local autonomy and political neutrality of public local officials despite party intervention of elections and their political party memberships, the superintendents of education could be understood in the same way. In this regard, the current superintendents election system, which restricts party intervention, is wrong in terms of system setting, (1) party intervention in election process should be permitted logically, and (2) if the party's return into election cannot be recognized, the system should be extensively improved by considering its alternative functions, especially through ① reform of campaign methods or ② redistricting. On the other hand, the current move to the city and provincial governors and superintendents' running mate system aiming only at resolving conflicts between governors and superintendents, without deep analysis of the cause of the problem of the present system, could cause concerns about local education autonomy by creating institutionally ‘weak superintendents of education’.
Nevertheless, the current process could offer a good opportunity to supplement the problems of the present system and come up with developmental alternatives by reviewing the meaning of the constitutional provisions that have been justifying party exclusion in superintendents of education election.