House of Councillors

The House of Councillors was the upper chamber of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea during the country's Second Republic. Known in Korean as Chamuiwon, it was created as part of a constitutional change that replaced the prior unicameral legislative arrangement with a bicameral parliament. The chamber was intended to operate alongside a House of Representatives, giving South Korea a two-house legislature. The idea of an upper house had appeared earlier in South Korean constitutional history. A 1952 amendment to the Constitution of the First Republic provided for a House of Councillors, but the chamber was never established in practice. Its creation was obstructed during the administration of Syngman Rhee, and the National Assembly continued to function as a unicameral body. The bicameral design became operative only with the constitutional settlement associated with the Second Republic. The institution was short-lived. The Second Republic and its parliamentary system were overthrown in the 1961 military coup, ending the constitutional order under which the House of Councillors existed. As a result, the chamber did not develop into a durable national institution and has not remained part of South Korea's subsequent constitutional structure. South Korea's legislature later returned to a unicameral National Assembly. Because this entity was a constitutional legislative chamber rather than a commercial organization, it had no conventional products, commercial offerings, corporate ownership, or market operations. Its significance lies in the history of South Korean constitutional design and in the brief experiment with bicameral government during the Second Republic.

The House of Councillors was established as the upper house of the National Assembly during South Korea's Second Republic. Its institutional background reached back to a constitutional amendment adopted in 1952 under the First Republic. That amendment provided for the creation of a House of Councillors, but the provision was not implemented. The administration of Syngman Rhee blocked the establishment of the chamber, leaving the National Assembly with a unicameral structure. South Korea's constitutional order changed after the political upheaval that ended the First Republic. The Constitution of the Second Republic established a bicameral legislature composed of a House of Representatives and a House of Councillors. The upper chamber therefore represented a significant change from the earlier legislative system. It was conceived as a separate component of the National Assembly rather than as an independent institution outside the national legislature. The chamber's existence was tied closely to the Second Republic's constitutional framework. That framework was itself brief. A military coup in 1961 displaced the Second Republic and brought an end to the political arrangements that had created the bicameral parliament. With the collapse of that constitutional order, the House of Councillors ceased to function as a national legislative chamber. The institution consequently had limited time to establish a lasting parliamentary role. It is remembered primarily as South Korea's short-lived upper house and as evidence of the country's mid-twentieth-century experimentation with bicameral constitutional government. Later South Korean constitutional arrangements did not preserve the chamber, and the National Assembly subsequently operated as a unicameral legislature.

• 1961

  End of the chamber

  [1]House of Councillors (South Korea)en.wikipedia.org

  The military coup of 1961 overthrew the Second Republic and ended the constitutional system in which the House of Councillors operated.

• 1952

  Constitutional provision for an upper house

  [1]House of Councillors (South Korea)en.wikipedia.org

  An amendment to the Constitution of the First Republic provided for a House of Councillors, but the chamber was not established in practice because its creation was blocked by the Syngman Rhee administration.

• Creation under the Second Republic

  [1]House of Councillors (South Korea)en.wikipedia.org

  The Constitution of the Second Republic established a bicameral National Assembly consisting of a House of Representatives and a House of Councillors.

A constitutional upper chamber intended to provide bicameral legislative review within the parliamentary system of South Korea's Second Republic.

1. 1House of Councillors (South Korea)en.wikipedia.org