• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.13-22
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• 2013

With increase of Korean economy scale and globalization, permanent alien residents in Korea are increasing day by day. Living in Korea, they maintain their original nationalities, but their life in Korea is greatly affected by political decision made by Korea. It has been taken for granted that foreigners's suffrage were not recognized due to national sovereignty. The claim that foreigners should not be allowed to participate in government has constantly been met with counterargument on the basis of instability of sovereignty principle, trends of advanced countries, intrinsic differences between federal and regional governments, or actual state of foreigners. It is unreasonable to deal with foreigners' suffrage and eligibility for election differently in that the current public offices election law does not allow foreigners to be eligible for election without any special reason while allowing foreigners to vote in the local election. It is discrimination against foreigners not to allow foreigners to be eligible for election when there is no rationale to differently deal with foreigners' suffrage and eligibility for election. This paper deals with constitutional argument regarding foreigners' electoral eligibility, takes a look at legislative cases of Japanese and European countries, and examines possibilities of including foreigners' eligibility for election in our public offices election law.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.610-616
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• 2021

This study is a literature review that analyzes the head of Ri election rules and regulations described in the village code, identifies problems, and proposes solutions for these problems. For data collection, a total of 146 village codes was collected from January 2019 to August 2019. The results showed people in most villages vote for the head of Ri according to democratic electoral processes. For system improvement, a one-person, one-vote system was proposed instead of a one-family, one-vote system in order to enhance gender equality and political rights. As for the appointment system, the following changes were proposed: First, candidate eligibility should be improved as only people who were born in that village are eligible; Second, the maximum age of candidacy for the head of Ri should be established as under 65 years old by considering physical ability in the event of disaster occurrences and physical activity required for running village businesses; Third, consecutive terms of the head of Ri when there is no successor should be limited in order to prevent indigenous forces from settling in the local community; and Fourth, education should be provided for building the head of Ri's stature in order to devote to promote public interest for village development.