Imperial Presidential System : today and in the future

South Korea's presidential system is somewhat alien to the Korean political landscape in the purest sense of the word. With each change of government, there are often pledges to reform the so-called Imperial Presidential System, in which power is concentrated in the hands of a single president. The factors that led to the emergence of the Imperial Presidential System are that the constitution and laws give the president excessive powers, including the right to appoint personnel, and the lack of independence of various government agencies. In addition, the president's will to call for the separation of powers at the beginning of his term has been compromised by power leaks towards the end of his term, leading him to take a position that seeks to concentrate power. As these issues could no longer be resolved politically, constitutional discussions on reorganizing the government structure to address them legally have continued, but no consensus has been reached. While scholars and politicians agree on the goal of decentralizing the power concentrated in the hands of the president, they disagree on whether the solution to the problem should be to preserve the presidential system or to try to improve it by abolishing it. Previous governments have proposed constitutional reforms that attempt to decentralize power in various ways while preserving the presidential system. This article analyzes the factors that led to the imperial presidential system, focusing on the previous government's constitutional proposals, and explores the direction of power distribution through the discussions of the National Assembly and the Constitutional Law Association. This may have implications for providing a basis for resolving the imperial presidency in future constitutional discussions.