공직선거후보자 선출을 위한 당내경선에서 사퇴한 후보자 득표의 효력에 관한 고찰

In today's political system where parliamentary democracy is the fundamental principle, the ultimate objective of ensuring the autonomy of political parties is to actually guarantee the freedom of political expression of the people. In this respect, ensuring the autonomy of political parties is a means for the people to guarantee the freedom of political expression and political association. Therefore, political parties should equip a structural process in which decisions can be made in a bottom-up scheme when making any decision internally. It can be said that the highlight event of internal decision-making within a political party is the official nomination of candidates to run in an election for public office. Democracy in the decision-making process can never be overemphasized enough because of the direct interest conflict between party members if a competitive election of the internal party members is conducted as a nomination method. It is because the party can be ruled not by ordinary people who are the members of the party but by the oligarchs such as influential politicians if no democracy is ensured in the decision-making process of a party. Moreover, in this case, the political intentions for the benefit of such oligarchs are misled and distorted as the intention of the party and this distorted intention is protected under the plausible name of the party's autonomy. It is like rather politically protecting the parties that hinder democracy through the constitutions. However, the constitutional normative power called party democratization is not actually effective since our legislation systems comprehensively delegate the recommendations for candidates for public office elections in the political parties to the internal constitutions and regulations of a party. It is thus necessary to prepare specific measures to secure democracy within a party through legislation. This study contemplates the debates on the validity or invalidity of specific intentions from the party members and the people that were reflected in the number of votes for the corresponding candidate before resigning in case there is a candidate who has resigned during the competitive election process. Afterward, through this, it substantiates the necessity of legislation as a specific measure to secure democracy within a party during the competitive election process. In case there is a resigned candidate has resigned during the competitive election process, it is against the principles of an equal election, direct election, representative democracy, and self-responsibility if the effect of the votes of the corresponding candidate is retroactively handled as an invalidation.