Rep. Park Hee-tae, speaker of the National Assembly, subjected himself to a prosecutor’s inquiry into a vote-buying allegation Sunday. Though his case may have no direct link to the 18th National Assembly’s underperformance during the last four years, it certainly has added to its self-inflicted humiliation. The floor in the main hall of the National Assembly has often become the scene of a brawl, as lawmakers attempting to railroad a bill try to break through the defenses of their rivals. Injur

Banks had often demanded people line up more than one guarantor if they wanted to borrow money until “joint and several liability” for individuals was abolished in 2008. But lenders still ask the self-employed and corporations that other parties be presented to hold each of them liable to the full amount of the relevant obligation.This loan practice, however, is set to be scrapped in May. The Financial Services Commission has recently decided to ban joint and several liability ― a practice often

In July last year, prosecutors indicted 37 football players on charges of fixing matches in the nation’s top professional football league. The associations of other sports should have learned a lesson from the scandal, but they did not. Now they are paying the price.Allegations have been made that professional baseball players were involved in match fixing. Prosecutors, who are looking into the cases, have reportedly obtained testimony confirming the scandal. The teams whose players are suspecte

Japanese authorities have decided not to allow a right-wing organization to erect stone monuments of “Takeshima” in front of the Korean Embassy in Tokyo and its consulate general in Osaka, Yonhap News and SBS TV reported, quoting official sources in Seoul. The reports revealed that Japanese officials intimated their Korean counterparts about the decision which is inadequate to be officially announced.A Japanese group called “the Society of Citizens Recognizing No Privileges of Foreigners in Japa

With his approval rating rising to over 50 percent this week, U.S. President Barack Obama told visiting Chinese top leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping that Washington welcomes China’s “peaceful rise” but cautioned him about friction over trade and human rights issues as the economic and military rivalry grows between the two countries.While the Chinese vice president was seeking to boost his international standing with his four-day visit to the United States, it offered U.S. leaders to size up the man

The United States is set to hold talks with North Korea in Beijing next Thursday, the third of their kind aimed at restarting the stalled six-nation negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. As a U.S. State Department spokeswoman put it, the talks are “a continuation of the meetings” that the United States has been holding with an evasive, cunning North Korea to see if it is prepared to fulfill its past commitments to denuclearization. Given the remarks, the United States does not a

Political parties have no qualms about making untenable pledges ahead of the April 11 general elections if they are believed to endear them to the electorate. A case in point is a promise to build a new airport in the southeast, which is shaping up to be one of the fiercest battle grounds.The proposal to build a new airport in the area, originally a campaign promise of President Lee Myung-bak, was scrapped when a feasibility study concluded last year that it would incur heavy losses if its const

Korea has about 1,000 judges sitting in the district, appellate and the supreme courts. They were given their robes after passing the state-run judiciary examination and two years of training. Each year, those who earn higher scores in various tests during the training course are appointed as judges and the rest go to the prosecution or directly go into legal practice.Judges are supposed to make rulings in accordance with the law and their conscience. People have believed judges have clearer con

Up until a few weeks ago, leaders of parties talked about some kind of “bottom-up” process in nominating candidates for the upcoming National Assembly elections. Both Park Geun-hye of what is now the Saenuri Party and Han Myeong-sook of the Democratic United Party mentioned “open primaries” at each district to find fresh personalities who have the respect of constituents and present positive images of their parties.But what we now see at the headquarters of these parties are members of respectiv

The ties between the president and the Saenuri Party, which was formerly the ruling Grand National Party, are coming to a dead end. The situation worsened as President Lee Myung-bak’s chief secretary for liaison with the party resigned for his role in a political payoff scandal that happened three years ago involving the party’s former chairman.The Blue House is looking for a seasoned politician to replace Kim Hyo-jae who is leaving the presidential staff after eight months in office, but whoeve

There are more than 1.5 million small business establishments, mostly eateries, with annual sales of less than 200 million won ($180,000). They pay 1.8 percent fees to credit card companies. Since late last year, owners of these places have moved collectively through their associations to get the rates lowered, threatening to temporarily close their businesses nationwide in protest. They were encouraged to do this after credit card firms were pressured into lowering rates for department stores a

Last week, a parliamentary standing committee approved a special bill that, if enacted, would shake the foundation of the nation’s financial system. Its members must be held accountable for the bill, which embodied populism at its apex. The bill is aimed at permitting depositors to recoup 55 percent of the money they held in excess of 50 million in their accounts with savings banks at the time when the savings banks were declared insolvent last year. It is also aimed at permitting investors to r

A statute is made invalid when six or more of the nine justices of the Constitutional Court decide that it is unconstitutional. But does it still have to require approval from six or more justices to invalidate a law when one justice post remains vacant? This is not a hypothetical question. It is an actual question that was raised last Thursday when the National Assembly rejected a nominee by the main opposition Democratic United Party for the justice post that had remained unfilled since July 8

The president has constitutional protection against criminal action. The speaker of the National Assembly has no such device. Still, prosecutors are required to take utmost caution before initiating a criminal inquiry into a case involving the speaker, the head of one of the three separate branches of government.In this regard, the prosecutors’ office did well when it decided to wait until Rep. Park Hee-tae resigned from his office of speaker of the National Assembly. Now that he has tendered hi

The main opposition Democratic United Party is crafting its electoral strategies for an alliance with far-left groups. That is understandable, given that the center-left party believes it vital to ally itself with a minor labor party, anti-government civic groups and labor activists if it is to win the April parliamentary elections and the December presidential election.One such strategy is for the party to pledge to abrogate the Korean-U.S. free trade agreement if it is not revised in the way i