Assembly speaker urges rival parties to form special committee on constitutional revision

▲ National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik speaks during a press conference on constitutional revision at the National Assembly in Seoul on March 10, 2026. (Yonhap)

Assembly speaker-Constitution

Assembly speaker urges rival parties to form special committee on constitutional revision

SEOUL, March 10 (Yonhap) -- National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik on Tuesday called on rival parties to form a special committee to ensure that a national referendum to revise the Constitution is held along with the upcoming local elections.

Woo made the call during a press conference at the National Assembly, stressing that a bill to revise the Constitution must be proposed by April 7 for a national referendum to be held on the day of the June 3 elections.

"If we miss this timing, it is uncertain when the next opportunity will come," Woo said, urging the ruling and opposition parties to create the committee before next Tuesday.

Woo added that the revision is aimed at establishing institutional safeguards to prevent illegal declarations of martial law, referring to former President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived martial law declaration in December 2024.

Under the Constitution, a constitutional amendment bill should be put on public notice for at least 20 days and put to a vote during a parliamentary plenary session within 60 days of the public notification.

The bill can be passed with the approval from at least two thirds of the total lawmakers, or 200 legislators.

South Korea has revised its Constitution nine times since 1948, when the South Korean government was established following the end of the 1910-45 Japanese colonial period.

Past attempts to revise the most recent Constitution, which was amended in 1987 to introduce a directly elected, single five-year term presidency, have failed due to the political power divide between a powerful presidency and a fractious parliament.

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