The Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea is appointed by the President with the National Assembly's approval. Unlike prime ministers in the parliamentary system, the Prime Minister of South Korea is not required to be a member of parliament.
The Prime Minister assists the President, supervises ministries, and recommends ministers. The Prime Minister is the first in the order of succession to discharge the duties of the office of the President as the acting-president should the president be unable to discharge his office. The last person to have served as the acting-president was Goh Kun during the impeachment trial of President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004.
The position was created in August 1948, when South Korea was founded, and was held by Lee Bum Suk until 1950. The title was Chief Cabinet Minister from 1961 until 1963.
A Prime Minister appointed by the President but not confirmed by the Assembly is known as the acting Prime Minister. The Prime Minister becomes acting president if the president dies, resigns or is impeached.
Famous quotes containing the words prime minister, prime, minister and/or south:
“If one had to worry about one’s actions in respect of other people’s ideas, one might as well be buried alive in an antheap or married to an ambitious violinist. Whether that man is the prime minister, modifying his opinions to catch votes, or a bourgeois in terror lest some harmless act should be misunderstood and outrage some petty convention, that man is an inferior man and I do not want to have anything to do with him any more than I want to eat canned salmon.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“Vanessa wanted to be a ballerina. Dad had such hopes for her.... Corin was the academically brilliant one, and a fencer of Olympic standard. Everything was expected of them, and they fulfilled all expectations. But I was the one of whom nothing was expected. I remember a game the three of us played. Vanessa was the President of the United States, Corin was the British Prime Minister—and I was the royal dog.”
—Lynn Redgrave (b. 1943)
“But, my dear, you cannot live in isolation from the human race, you know.”
—John Clifford, U.S. screenwriter, and Herk Harvey. Minister (Stan Levitt)
“During Prohibition days, when South Carolina was actively advertising the iodine content of its vegetables, the Hell Hole brand of ‘liquid corn’ was notorious with its waggish slogan: ‘Not a Goiter in a Gallon.’”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)