Constitution Day in South Korea

Shin Ik-hee from the Provisional Government was the first politician to take action towards enacting Korea’s Constitution. On December 2, 1945, 4 months after the liberation of Korea, Shin Ik-hee moved to Seoul and teamed up with some political experts to draft a new constitution and administrative organizations.

The Constitution declares South Korea a "democratic republic" (took from Article 1 of Constitutional Charter of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea of 1919), its territory consisting of "the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands," and that "The Republic of Korea shall seek unification and shall formulate and carry out a policy of peaceful unification based on the principles of freedom and democracy."

Since its establishment, the Provisional Constitution was amended five times until 1944. The measures were to keep up with standards of modern constitutions with all the core clauses, such as the rights and duties of the people, the Korean provisional assembly, government organizations and accounting, and the constitution was becoming more established accordingly.

This structure later became the basis of the First Constitution of the Republic of Korea established in 1948.