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영어

According to the Korean Constitution, the citizen has the social right in the area of education, environment, and social welfare. The Constitution clearly guarantee the social welfare area in form of right. Nonetheless, there has been a critic about the social right especially in the area of the social welfare. In generally the social welfare program needs a lot of money which mainly consists of the tax that comes from the citizen. In this regards, the rigidity of social welfare program has not been sustained because of flexibility of government budget. So it is desirable that the constitutional court has the less severe standard in reviewing the legality of the social welfare law in the perspective of constitution. Also the legislation and executive rightly face the constitutional limit in protecting the social right. First, the social state concept which the constitution concretely define and contrasts with the socialist state put a certain limit on social right. Therefore the executive and legislation should respect individual property right in shaping the social welfare program. Second, democracy also set a limit on the social right. In generally, legislation is made by the support of majority of representative. So the legislative power should take care of the politically not represented citizen especially in the area of basic social welfare program. Third, social welfare program ought to be formed according to rule of law that also the constitution demand. In addition social right can conflict with basic individual rights. Fourth, social rights heavily rely on the economic capability of the state.