The Constitutional Judiciary of Republic of Korea: Constitutional Review in Therms of Traditional Confucian Society

The aim of this article is to introduce a system of the constitutional judiciary of Republic of Korea as the system Czech reader should probably not be very familiar with. Following the history of constitutional review in Korea, there are shown many forms the constitutional review institutions took on during the time. In Korea, there was adopted one after another almost every form of constitutional review we know from constitutional law textbooks – from judicial review á la Supreme Court of United States on the one hand to the kelsenian model on the other. The article mainly focuses on the development in last twenty years after the Constitutional Court of Korea was established in its present form. According to Tom Ginsburg the Constitutional Court of Korea is arguably the most important and most influential of all constitutional courts in East and Southeast Asia, this article submits possible reasons and circumstances leading to this success including political background and the most important cases held before the Constitutional Court of Korea. The article then analyses the real and possible conflicts between “imported” system of constitutional review based on Western society’s values and philosophy and approach of traditional Confucian society. Overview of relevant case law shows how sensitive this question is although we can conclude the clear tendency toward globalization at the same time.