“Hŏkatoen chiphoe man yŏlgi? Mikunjŏng‧chŏngbu suripchikhu chiphoe wa siwi e taehan pŏpnyuldŭl ŭi pyŏnhwa wa unyong ”[Only Permitted Assembly? Changes and Continuities of Laws on Freedom of Assembly and Demonstration during the US Military Occupation of Korea and the Early Stage of the Republic of Korea]

This paper deals with the legal mechanism of assembly and demonstration in Korea. While focusing on the US Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK, 1945-1948), it shows that Proclamations had two dimensions: elevating human rights and pacifying Korean situation. Thus, the USAMGIK annulled two notorious colonial laws: Act on Punishing Political Convicts (1910) and Peace Preservation Law (1925), acts that were not threatening to the USAMGIK. However, other important laws on assembly such as Security Law (1908), Act on Assembly (1910), and Act on Provisional Security Law (1941) were intact by the end of USAMGIK era. Those laws provided police with arbitrary power to allow assembly. As is well known, through 1946-47, the left wings in Korea collapsed. When UN Temporary Commission on Korea in 1948 for the May 10 General Election, the USAMGIK had to show the world that Korea was in a liberal and democratic atmosphere for the election. Thus, through USAMGIK Ordinance 183, all three Security Law (1908), Act on Assembly (1910), and Act on Provisional Security Law (1941) was repealed, although it was not well known among Koreans. However, the newly established Republic of Korea retained USAFIK Proclamation No. 2 by April 1950 or enacted the martial law in the name of public security. Through the Jeju uprisings and massacre and Yŏsu-Sunch’ŏn uprisings, the Republic of Korea passed the National Security Law (1948) and the “Martial Law”(1949) in which the police had decisive power to allow assembly and demonstration. The enacted law on Freedom of Assembly was also the “permission” system. Thus, before 1987, the de facto permission system on assembly had been retained. Thus, the colonial legacy persisted up to the whole cold war era in South Korea