South Korea's legal system has established several principles governing which law takes precedence: higher law over lower, newer law over older, and special law over general law. A special law, unlike a general statute that applies broadly and universally, regulates only a narrow set of people, places or matters. Most have been enacted on the stated grounds of filling gaps in existing law. The most recent is the special act on establishing an integrated Jeonnam-Gwangju metropolitan city, passed in March this year.
According to the Korea Law Information Center, there have been more than 6,600 enactments and amendments of special laws since the country's founding. There are 473 special laws currently in force, and even counting only statutes — excluding presidential decrees and other subordinate regulations — the figure reaches about 220. With 2,312 statutes in force in total, roughly one in 10 is a special law. The result is a patchwork legal system built on excessive exception-making — a "republic of special laws," one might say.
Some special laws were unavoidable, serving purposes such as compensating victims, promoting balanced regional development or supporting industry. The special act on victims of jeonse (a Korean lease system requiring a large lump-sum deposit instead of monthly rent) fraud, enacted in 2023, and the semiconductor special act, which cleared the National Assembly in January this year, are leading examples. But laws written for a specific group can collide with the constitutional principle of equality, inviting accusations of favoritism, or infringe excessively on basic rights — bringing social conflict and unintended consequences. The country's first special law, the Special Act on Punishment of Specific Crimes, was promulgated after the May 16, 1961 military coup and was used to suppress those who opposed it.
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea and the government recently agreed to enact a special measures act by the end of the year that would suspend punishment for violations of the Farmland Act. Rather than overhauling a statute that fails to reflect the rapid aging of rural communities, they are applying emergency treatment through a separate special law. On the rigid 52-hour workweek cap, the party and government are likewise moving to paper over the problem with a special law granting exceptions only to certain areas, such as semiconductor plants in the Honam region, instead of amending the Labor Standards Act itself to allow flexibility. Patching over contradictions and gaps in general law by churning out special laws, rather than fixing the underlying statutes, is a practice rarely seen in advanced economies. At the very least, shouldn't there be a sunset clause or a cap on the total number of special laws?
