유럽헌법학회

As a national representative body, parliament is a legislative body and a state control agency. Parliaments of modern nations generally have investigative powers for administrative control in accordance with the principle of separation of powers. The parliamentary rights to investigate the state is one of the effective means of ensuring the effective exercise of parliamentary constitutional authority. It is pointed out that the subject institution of the investigation by the national assembly is limited to the institutions approved by the plenary session on a case by case basis. However, to recover the modern parliamentary function and regenerate strong parliaments, the power to investigate the state affairs of the parliament is highly expected as a means to control over the whole country. Recently, as efforts to identify the allegations charged on judiciary continue, there is no precedent of exerting the investigatory power of parliament to the judiciary, which can be evaluated as respecting the independence of the judiciary. However, if we can find the substantive truth through the investigation, it can be an opportunity to strengthen the independence of the judiciary. Under the trend of severe conflicts between the parties, the rights to investigate the state administration has not been practically effective. In this regard this paper suggests improvement measures as follows: the improvement of internal expertise within the National Assembly, the relaxation of the approval requirement of the investigation plan, the implementation of the investigation led by standing committees, the improvement of witness selection procedure and the protection of the human rights of witnesses.