By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter

Political parties and civic groups have shown mixed reactions over the Supreme Court’s position advocating the National Security Law as the court expressed its opposition to recent moves to revise or abolish the anti-communist law.

The court’s statement on the need to maintain the security law is in apparent protest against the ruling Uri Party’s move and human rights groups’ call to abolish the half-century-old law which has often been used to suppress democratic movements and crack down on dissidents over the past decades.

It was made public on Thursday that the highest court upheld a lower court’s Aug. 30 ruling against two leaders of a pro-North Korean student activist group, who were sentenced to 30 months in prison for violating the security law.

The Supreme Court decision was made after the Constitutional Court ruled Aug. 26 that the security law is in line with Constitution, dismissing a recommendation that the law should be repealed.

``Increasing inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation do not necessarily mean that the North is no longer an anti-state organization or that restriction of the security law is invalid,’’ the court said in the ruling.

It also directly denounced the ruling party’s move to scrap the law, saying, ``The North has brought about national disasters, threatened to turn the South into a communist nation and still has the potential to overthrow the South Korean government. In this situation, we have to be cautious (in abolishing the security law.’’

``We can’t allow even a little bit of weakness in national security, as a country’s system can’t be restored once it is destroyed,’’ it added.

Regarding the court’s conservative stance, the ruling party strongly criticized that it is not only against the trend of the time but also the court’s arrogation over the legislature, while the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) welcomed it, saying it was a timely warning against national security.

``It is anachronistic to claim that there is an increasing the number of those aligning with the communist country. We are not suggesting disarmament, since we can protect national security with criminal laws as they contain charges such as treason,’’ Uri Party Rep. Woo Won-shik said.

On the contrary, the GNP Rep. Lee Hahn-koo said, ``Since South Korea’s national security is viewed to be weak, the court made a very timely decision.’’ Rep. Kim Deog-ryong also claimed the security law should be revised through an agreement between ruling and opposition parties.

Minbyun, or Lawyers for a Democratic Society, also said in its statement, ``The court’s opinion violated the respective independence of the legislature, the executive and the judicature by expressing its disfavor against the legislature’s policy.’’

Civic groups also showed divided views, escalating the ongoing controversy over the security law.

``It is against the stream of the time. Having a viewpoint of the cold war, the court is not seeing the North as an object of reunification,’’ Kim Myung-soo, an activist of Group for Human Rights told The Korea Times.

``Decisions of both the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court are made by old judges who have vested rights and have never suffered damages from the security law through the era of dictatorship. The security law, which infringes on human rights and freedom of expression, should be scrapped,’’ Kim added.

However, another civic group, the Free Citizen’s Alliance of Korea, agreed with the court, saying: ``It is notable that the court warned about social controversy. The current security law is the minimum required by the system for maintaining the nation’s security.’’

rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr