선거권연령하향의 시대적 요청 － 민주주의와 세대평등의 실현의 관점에서 －

The theme of this paper, "the political participation and the voting age of children and the youth" is motivated by the following questions. Why can't children and the youth in Korea autonomously make a decision on issues related to their own interests? According to the principles of democracy, political participation is very important for the members of the community to exercise their own rights and to look after their own interests. However, why are their political participation extensively limited due to the voting age which is particularly too high to meet the present global trend? What is the rationale behind the current high the voting age which limits their political involvement? Is the rationale possible to secure its legitimacy constitutionally? This paper aims at emphasizing that it is necessary to change the current anachronistic perception of children and the youth newly and to promote the improvement of their political participation being excluded. Even though children and the youth correspond to approximately 21 percent of the people, they have been recognized as being excluded from the area of political participation. It is the strongly supporting fact that there is no way for them to participate in the political decision-making process to represent their interests in the institutional aspects. This is because they are not equally considered as Korean citizens and main agents of their rights in our society. Therefore, the solidified perception of their status of the rights object has had a negative effect on their equality as community members. Heretofore, their political participation has been limited by the high the voting age embodied in article 15, paragraph 1 of act on the election of public officials. The problem of limiting the political participation of children and youth by the voting age is limitation of sovereignty of children and youth of being citizen and becoming citizen as democratic citizenship. In this regard it can be more clearly understood through a ruling of the constitutional Court regarding the voting age. In judging the unconstitutionality of the voting age ‘20 years’ and ‘19 years’embodied in the article 15, paragraph 1 of former ‘act on The election of public officials and act on the prevention of election malpractices’ and of ‘Public office election Act’, The constitutional court judgment was not to infringe the equal rights embodied in the article 11, paragraph 1 and the right to vote embodied in the article 24 of the constitution. This judgment of the constitutional court has been maintained its grounds of this judgement in prior the constitutional decision(헌재 2014. 4. 24. 2012헌마287) on in the article 15, paragraph 1 of ‘Public Office election Act’ which limits political participation of children and the youth, 18 years old who doesn’t reach the age of 19 yet. The main grounds of the constitutional court’s judgement relating to the voting age was as follows. deciding the voting age is at legislative discretion. The constitutional court understands as follows; the age, which are the subject of judgmen, embodied in the article 15, paragraph 1 of ‘Public office election Act’and so on, specified in the relevant subject of other target ruling is included in the area of legislative discretion as a rational choice of legislature to accomplish legislative purpose. so to set the voting age limit to over 19 or 20 years old, even taking into account all the complicated circumstances, is a matter of rational legislative discretion which has been given to the legislature and the constitutional court was determined it was beyond the acceptable limits of legislative discretion. Considering the importance of the principle of universal suffrage and suffrage, the grounds of the constitutional court’s judgement with only the logic of rational legislative discretion on voting age and with an abstract concept of political judgement (maturity) would be a limit to get legitimacy. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to discuss the problematic limitation of their political participation due to the current the voting age and the possible improvements to it. In this paper, there is a study on the importance of their participation in elections and the problematic limitations of their rights to vote due to the voting age set in terms of democracy. In particular, this paper focuses on political judgement (maturity) which has been used as the main criteria of the voting age to limit their current political involvement. It is inappropriate to justify the restriction of voting rights of children and the youth under the age of 19 due to the adverse effects of their political judgement(maturity) and educational aspects which the Constitutional Court present as the main reasons for the unconstitutionality of the current the voting age. Therefore, in order to propose improvements to this problem, The pros and cons of lowering the voting age in foreign countries have been discussed. As a result. it suggests that there is a need for lowing the voting age to ensure their political participation in Korea. Since the legal the voting age needs to be lowered gradually from a long-term perspective, the article 15, paragraph 1 of act on the election of public officials is in urgent need of its amendment to legalize the voting age of 18. Furthermore, the voting age of 16 is being actively discussed in the world. Now it also is necessary to make a continuous effort in order to form a social consensus on the introduction of the voting age 16 in Korea.