Minister Lee, Call Your Lawyer!

I wonder if the UniFiction Ministry’s Kaesong brain trust — perhaps the same great minds that thought they could fill Wal-Mart shelves with Kaesong products — ever stumbled across these articles of the Republic of Korea Constitution:

Article 32

(1) All citizens shall have the right to work. The State shall endeavor to promote the employment of workers and to guarantee optimum wages through social and economic means and shall enforce a minimum wage system under the conditions
as prescribed by Act.

(2) All citizens shall have the duty to work. The State shall prescribe by Act the extent and conditions of the duty to work in conformity with democratic principles.

(3) Standards of working conditions shall be determined by Act in such a way as to guarantee human dignity.

(4) Special protection shall be accorded to working women, and they shall not be subjected to unjust discrimination in terms of employment, wages and working conditions.

(5) Special protection shall be accorded to working children.

(6) The opportunity to work shall be accorded preferentially, under the conditions as prescribed by Act, to those who have given distinguished service to the State, wounded veterans and policemen, and members of the bereaved families of military servicemen and policemen killed in action.

Article 33

(1) To enhance working conditions, workers shall have the right to independent association, collective bargaining and collective action.

(2) Only those public officials who are designated by Act, shall have the right to association, collective bargaining and collective action.

(3) The right to collective action of workers employed by important defense industries may be either restricted or denied under the conditions as prescribed by Act.

The longstanding interpretation of Article 2 is that all North Koreans are also South Korean citizens. That provision is much less clear than the one cited above, but