North Korea · Constitution
Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Adopted in 1972 to replace the 1948 text and amended repeatedly, most significantly in 1992, 1998, 2009, 2012, 2016, 2019 and 2021. The preamble characterises it as the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il constitution. It declares the Workers' Party of Korea the leading force of the state and society, names the Supreme People's Assembly the highest organ of state power, and since 2019 designates the President of the State Affairs Commission as the supreme representative of all the Korean people. Chapter V lists citizens' rights, subject to the principle of collectivism in Article 63, under which rights are exercised on the basis of 'one for all and all for one'.
The constitutional text
Adopted in 1972 to replace the 1948 text and amended repeatedly, most significantly in 1992, 1998, 2009, 2012, 2016, 2019 and 2021. The preamble characterises it as the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il constitution. It declares the Workers' Party of Korea the leading force of the state and society, names the Supreme People's Assembly the highest organ of state power, and since 2019 designates the President of the State Affairs Commission as the supreme representative of all the Korean people. Chapter V lists citizens' rights, subject to the principle of collectivism in Article 63, under which rights are exercised on the basis of 'one for all and all for one'.
Separation of powers
Unitary and centralised. Nine provinces and several specially administered cities, with directly administered special economic and tourist zones — Rason, Kaesong, Wonsan-Kalma and others — that operate under their own investment statutes offering terms unavailable in the rest of the country. Local people's assemblies exist but exercise no autonomous legislative competence.
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