National Assembly of South Korea : Ask Biography

Home | Legislature | National Assembly of South Korea

The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) (Gukhoe in Korean language) is a 299-member unicameral legislature. The latest general elections were held on April 9, 2008. Single-member constituencies comprise 245 of the National Assembly's seats, while the remaining 54 are allocated by proportional representation. Members serve four-year terms.

The unicameral National Assembly consists of at least 200 members according to the Constitution. In 1990 the National Assembly had 299 seats, 224 of which were directly elected from single-member districts in the general elections of April 1988. Under applicable laws, the remaining seventy-five representatives were appointed by the political parties in accordance with a proportional formula based on the number of seats won in the election. By law, candidates for election to the National Assembly must be at least thirty years of age. As part of a political compromise in 1987, an earlier requirement that candidates have at least five years' continuous residency in the country was dropped to allow Kim Dae Jung, who had spent several years in exile in Japan and the United States during the 1980s, to return to political life. The National Assembly's term is four years. In a change from the more authoritarian Fourth Republic and Fifth Republic (1972 � 80 and 1980 � 87, respectively), under the Sixth Republic, the National Assembly cannot be dissolved by the president.