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In Korea, there is no broad consensus about the idea that social rights must be essential elements of human rights and constitutional basic rights. Even more, there is very stark tendency which regards social rights only in the frame of political-ideological struggle. To correct this constellation, we need to clarify, besides the universal validity of human rights, especially of social rights, the idea of democratic republic anew. I will argue that the normative status of social rights must not be separated from liberal rights and not be regarded as marginal human rights. They are, first of all, <formally> necessary basic rights for the constitution of the moral order in which all human being can be protected in their dignity from the vulnerability. But they are also essential from the <substantial> perspective regarding fundamental needs of human being that must be fulfilled absolutely. Lastly, I want to show how the demand of legal implementation of social rights resides intrinsically within the idea of democratic republic itself.

According to the Korean Constitution, the citizen has the social right in the area of education, environment, and social welfare. The Constitution clearly guarantee the social welfare area in form of right. Nonetheless, there has been a critic about the social right especially in the area of the social welfare. In generally the social welfare program needs a lot of money which mainly consists of the tax that comes from the citizen. In this regards, the rigidity of social welfare program has not been sustained because of flexibility of government budget. So it is desirable that the constitutional court has the less severe standard in reviewing the legality of the social welfare law in the perspective of constitution. Also the legislation and executive rightly face the constitutional limit in protecting the social right. First, the social state concept which the constitution concretely define and contrasts with the socialist state put a certain limit on social right. Therefore the executive and legislation should respect individual property right in shaping the social welfare program. Second, democracy also set a limit on the social right. In generally, legislation is made by the support of majority of representative. So the legislative power should take care of the politically not represented citizen especially in the area of basic social welfare program. Third, social welfare program ought to be formed according to rule of law that also the constitution demand. In addition social right can conflict with basic individual rights. Fourth, social rights heavily rely on the economic capability of the state.

The substantial contents of social basic rights, which are clearly stipulated in the Constitution, are realized and embodied through social security legislation. Social security legislation forms and concretizes social basic rights, so technically the principle of legal saving is applied. Thus, social security legislation is the frame in which social security policies are contained; hence, social security policies should be legally based on social security legislation. In order to examine current situation and problems of social security legislations, this study categorized the scope of the legislations and investigated into recently legislated major social security acts, social insurance act, public assistance act and the acts concerning social security. In addition, it examined the ongoing processes to introduce bills about social security in the 17th National Assembly. In terms of listening to public’s demands for welfare and realizing social justice and fair distribution, this study considered social security legislation system of advanced countries, and it concluded that the range of social security application should be extended by modifying, complementing or mutually connecting relevant acts. The democracy and efficiency of social security system also need to be guaranteed, and so do extension of entitlement of social security and substantial reflection of the publics’ demands and opinions. Another problem is that the links among systems and integrated coordination has not been realized since individual acts concerning social security had been enacted separately. Hence, it is necessary to modify related acts and unify the terms. In addition, the changes in social security legislation are also necessary in order to reflect the changes in employment, demographic structure, family structure and the role of women. The tasks to be solved in terms of social welfare-related acts are as follows. It needs to enhance the level of social welfare and systemize the related acts based on its category, in terms of contents and forms respectively. In the end, it will contribute to establishing more comfortable system to both officials and recipients.

Under the representative democracy of the Republic of Korea, the National Assembly is supposed to play a major role in making legislation. This paper addresses the issue of whether the National Assembly has really played a major role in the law-making process in Korea throughout 60 years of history of the Government. In order to see how the National Assembly performed its legislative function throughout 60 years, this paper examines what the National Assembly did under each Republic(Korea is under the sixth Republic). The number of bills proposed by members of the National Assembly is compared with the number of bills proposed by the President of the Government. And the percentage of bills that were proposed by members and passed the National Assembly among the total number of bills that became law is also examined to see how actively members conducted their legislative function. This paper found out that the legislative performance of the National Assembly depends largely on the interaction between the National Assembly and the Chief Executive. When the national legislature interacted with the executive branch on an equal basis, in other words, when the principle of the separation of power was well observed, the legislative performance by the National Assembly was moderately good. This was true during the beginning several years of the first and third Republic. On the other hands, when the President predominated over the National Assembly under the authoritarian regime, the legislative performance of the National Assembly was reduced to the minimum. This was true during the fourth and fifth Republic. It is fortunate that the National Assembly has begun to be actively engaged in performing its legislative function since the beginning of the sixth Republic under the current Constitution. Especially, since the 15th National Assembly in 1996, members has started to show their strong interest in the legislative activity. During the 17th Assembly from 2004 to 2008, the National Assembly prevailed over the executive branch, as far as law-making is concerned. This was a dramatic change from the past.

The Administration branch has proposed the bill mainly, and legislated a wide range of sub-laws such as presidential decree with delegation by laws in the pursuing the rapid modernization in our country. However, recently the legislative trend leading by administration branch become to slow according to the strengthening of the legislature's function. This study focus on evaluating the results of government legislation during 60 years, and proposing the tasks of government legislation on the basis of that assessment in the future. The government legislation during Rhee Syngman's government(1948--60) and Chang 's government(1960-61), nation establishing period, was the center for the laws related to foundation of national administration, and elimination the remnants of Japan's law as soon as possible. The Park Chung-hee's government, Chun Doo-hwan's government , and Roh Tae-woo's government had the military government in common in the era of economic development, and they forced to make laws on economic growth rather than political development. In the era of the democratization, the governments had the intense legislation for the democratic reform strongly in common complying with the resignation of the authoritarian government, and strong eagerness for the democracy. The legislation has not been done systematically but fragmentarily in order to respond to the problems' case by case. The legislation must be done by the plans and systems, furthermore it should be a advanced and higher quality one in the future. The legislation reasons should be added to law, and the impact assessment system of legislation should be introduced step by step system. And the democratization of legislation process must be promoted continually. Additionally, the efficiency of the legislation should be enhanced. The legislative power between the National Assembly and government should be distributed appropriately.

This study focuses on finding problems of Korean legislation in the new 21th century and on suggesting some solutions to settle them. In these days many Koreans dissatisfy with activities and attitudes of congressmen. A survey conducted in October 2008 shows percentage of trust to them is just 1.1% and another in December is 6.3%. Low trust to legislators hinder legislation After democratization in 1987 pluralistic phenomena have been spreaded out very rapidly and strongly in Korea. As authoritarian regime has demolished, each individual and group freely seeks eagerly its private interest and does not consider public good seriously. New information society has induced people to choose more radical and extreme position and to hate relatively more moderate and compromising attitude with experience of debates and discussions through cyber space. People influenced by neo-liberalism even regard parliament's legislation as an unnecessary regulation to hinder their liberty. Political party system has not been developed enough to control conflicts and disputes in society and to settle them in advance. Pluralism in Korea has become stronger and stronger with these four reasons. Despite of effect of strong pluralism, I think Korean legislation could obtain people's trust with the following treatment. Acts of parliament should get more flexibility to adapt changing environment smoothly and quickly. The National Assembly should delegate more power of legislation to local parliaments to improve their autonomy and to decide local matters as much as they can. Congressmen should consider protection of the weaker and the poor and make acts for them to achieve economic standard as high as keeping dignity of human beings with their own effort. Process of legislation should also be improved to get better democratic, public and scientific quality. Finally legislators should have more cooperative and compromising mind to make the best act peacefully and political party system be developed to coordinate conflicting private interests in advance.

The Constitutional Court or other courts recognize the National Assembly’s duty to legislate very rigorously. Based on the principle of separation of powers, it accentuates discretion or autonomy of the assembly. However, under the current democratic system, the legislation of the National Assembly in fluences the national policy more, so it is needed to recognize the National Assembly’s duty to legislate more actively. When most of people want to know illegal acts of the country and make the government compensate for the damages of victims, the National Assembly, the organization representing the public, is required to legislate. This study analyzed 3 cases (2 lower court decisions and 1 Supreme Court decision), which urged the National Assembly to legislate, and it also investigated into the Special Act on the Refundment, etc. of School Site Acquisition Charges based on the decision of the Constitutional Court. When the National Assembly fails to pass urgent bills or neglects the demands of the public, it is necessary to amend the Constitutional Law or the National Assembly law to prioritize urgent bills. Moreover, the Constitutional court and other subordinate courts also need to take up apositive attitude injudging the necessity. By doing so, legislators will be able to exert the freedom of legislation more actively, as the ones to interpret the meaning of the Constitution. Moreover, it will also contribute to achieving the duty to monitor and amend laws. In the same context, the Special Act on the Refundment, etc. of School Site Acquisition Charges will set a great example to the National Assembly, in terms of recognizing the active performance of duty to legislate.