Hereditary leadership system and its impacts on human rights in N Korea
Muhammad Muzahidul Islam :
The full name of North Korea is Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in short, DPRK.
If we closely peruse the name we find that the North Korea is legally a republic and not a monarchy.
Since 1948 a hereditary one-man rule (de facto) established by the Kim family has been ignoring the constitutional provisions (de jure) of North Korea; its constitution does not allow the inheritance of power.
Is it possible to express the free will of North Korean people under the hereditary system? Are the rights of North Korean people safe under this system?
Constitutional provisions and reality is totally different in North Korea. The constitution does not allow the inheritance of power.
Article 4 of DPRK constitution (amended in 2019) provides that “The sovereignty of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea resides in the workers, peasants, soldiers, intellectuals and all other working people.
The working people exercise State power through their representative organs-the Supreme People’s Assembly and local People’s Assemblies at all levels”.
And according to this constitution the chairman of the State Affairs Commission, who represents the DPRK, should be elected with a five-year term of office by the Supreme People’s Assembly.
However, since 1948 the constitution has, unfortunately, always been used as a tool to support the hereditary system.
Let me share with you the conclusion of an article (The Injustice of North Korea’s Hereditary Leadership Succession as Demonstrated by the History of Power Transfer from Kim Il-sung to Kim Jong-il, By Kim Myong, HRNK Contributor, Edited by Greg Scarlatoiu, HRNK Executive Director) published in Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) Insider.
It was published on the occasion of Kim Jong-il’s birthday, on February 16, 2021.
According to this conclusion “North Korea has been put under the dictatorial and incompetent rule of Kim Il-sung’s family for three generations in a row.
The current dictator, Kim Jong-un, far exceeds his predecessors in terms of brutality and violence.
After experiencing his dictatorship for over nine years, the North Korean people have abandoned any expectation or hope in their future and have realized that the only way out is regime change.
One of the things that I envied the most in the Free World is the right of citizens to freely express their will by casting ballots.
I am genuinely fascinated by the beauty of democratic states that allow citizens to elect by democratic means their preferred candidates as statesmen or representatives or dismiss them if they failed to meet their expectations. North Korea should no longer be ruled by any member of the Kim family.
The old hereditary system established by Kim Il-sung must end and be replaced with a new system that will allow North Korean citizens to elect a leader according to their free will and choice in order to realize social and democratic changes by themselves. Myself, I will contribute the little strength that I have and my limited capacity to this cause”.
Like other authoritarian countries North Korea has always a little respect and honour to rights of its people. The mentality of the regime is like – when the power is not rested to the people’s hands there is no point to count them.
The human rights situations are reflected in the reports of human rights organizations. I would like to quote from the report of Freedom House (Freedom in the World 2023, North Korea).
On electoral process the said report states that ‘Kim Jong-un became the country’s supreme leader in 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, who had led North Korea since his father’s death in 1994.
In 2016, the State Affairs Commission (SAC) became the country’s top ruling organ, and Kim Jong-un was named its chairman.
In 2019, Kim was reelected as SAC chairman by the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), the unicameral legislature, and given the new title of “supreme representative of all the Korean people and the supreme leader of the Republic.”
On the same point the report further states that ‘Members of the 687-seat SPA are elected to five-year terms.
The Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland (DFRF), a coalition dominated by the ruling Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) alongside a handful of subordinate parties and organizations, preselects all candidates, who then run unopposed.
Voting is compulsory for citizens who are at least 17 years old, and turnout commonly approaches 100 percent. Preselected candidates won every seat in the 2019 SPA elections’.
‘Although there is a clear framework for conducting and monitoring elections, the system’s structure denies voters any choice and precludes opposition to the incumbent leadership.
The government uses the mandatory elections as an unofficial census, tracking whether and how people voted, and interpreting any rejection of the preselected candidates as treason’.
On the political pluralism and participation the said report also states that ‘Political dissent and opposition are prohibited and harshly punished.
The country has been ruled by the KWP, which the Kim family has always controlled, since its founding.
Kim Jong-un was promoted from KWP chairman to secretary general in 2021. His late father, Kim Jong-il, was dubbed the KWP’s “eternal general secretary” after his death’.
We can say that under the existing hereditary leadership system it is not possible for the North Korean people to express their free will.
The rights of North Korean people are not safe under this system when the country is run by a dynastic totalitarian regime that regularly engages in grave human rights abuses forgetting the obligations that come under the international human rights instruments including International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
(The writer is a barrister-at-law, human rights activist and an advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh)
