Ruling party lawmaker calls for constitutional amendment to bring election body under audit oversight

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Yoon Geon-young said Monday that bringing the National Election Commission under the Board of Audit and Inspection's job-inspection authority — and converting election commissioners to full-time positions — would require a constitutional amendment.

Yoon, the ruling party's floor manager on the special parliamentary investigation committee on the National Election Commission, made the remarks during a morning appearance on MBC Radio's "Kim Jong-bae's Focus." He said "the right approach, if we want to do this properly, is a single-issue constitutional amendment."

He said the Constitutional Court had already issued a ruling finding job inspections of the commission unconstitutional, adding that resolving the matter through legislation alone would be extremely limited.

Yoon also said the commission's non-resident structure needed to be addressed alongside external audits. "The chair and the commissioners are all non-resident positions," he said. "To put it bluntly, the chair is little more than a figurehead."

"The secretariat holds the keys to the safe — all real power rests with the secretariat," Yoon said. "And yet, figurehead or not, it comes with generous allowances, making it a cushy post. Even if you show up just one day a month, you receive more than 4 million won ($2,610) in allowances."

He added that the non-resident structure had allowed the secretariat to accumulate all real authority, leading to bureaucratization. "This is another area that must be reformed, even if it takes a constitutional amendment," he said.