The National Assembly is set to check the performances of all government agencies and organizations under their control for a 20-day period starting Friday. Both the ruling and opposition parties are already moving to use this occasion as an opportunity to put their presidential candidates in favorable light and upstage their rivals.
The legislature’s right to inspection is one of the two tools it can use to keep the executive branch of government in check during the 100-day regular legislative session opening in September each year. The other is the right to deliberate on the administration’s budget request for the next year.
Each member of the National Assembly is authorized to demand the provision of necessary documents by relevant agencies ahead of the inspection and call those deemed necessary to the witness stand during the inspection. He or she may call for disciplinary or legal action against those who are suspected of wrongdoings or criminal offenses.
It goes without saying that this privilege should be used to serve the purpose of checks and balances under the democratic principle regarding the separation of powers among the three different branches of government. But this power for inspection is at the risk of being abused by many lawmakers who appear intent on advancing the interests of their own parties, including winning the presidential election.
Of course, both the ruling Saenuri Party and the opposition Democratic United Party deny that they are exploiting the inspection to enhance the odds of winning the presidential election on Dec. 19.
Rep. Lee Han-koo, floor leader of the Saenuri Party, promises to focus the inspection on key issues of concern to the public: household income, job creation, education, housing and sex offenses. He also says his party will try to fend off an offensive from the opposition party, which he believes will be intent on discrediting his party by exposing the administration’s policy failures.
But his remarks are contradicted, for instance, by the demand from one ruling-party lawmaker that the Seoul metropolitan government and its agencies submit contracts they have signed with AhnLab, a computer virus vaccine provider, which was founded by the independent presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo. Would the lawmaker have demanded the documents if Ahn were not a formidable rival for his party’s candidate, Park Geun-hye? Other party lawmakers have decided to call some of those close to the opposition party’s presidential nominee, Moon Jae-in, to the witness stand, too.
The Democratic United Party is equally misguided in its preparations for the upcoming inspection. Its members have decided to select Park’s brother and others having connections with her as witnesses. But all they need to do if they have evidence of their lawbreaking is file complaints with the prosecution.
On the other hand, it would be a legitimate election strategy if the opposition party focused on the administration’s ill performances and, by doing so, attempted to smear the image of the ruling party. It could rightly insist that the ruling party and, by extension, its presidential candidate share the responsibility for those failures with the administration.
Even more lamentable is the competition between the rival parties to bring business leaders to testify in this election year. They are set to engage in chaebol-bashing in the dubious name of economic democratization. The number of businessmen who the opposition party alone demands to stand as witnesses has already surpassed the 100 mark. They include Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee and Hyundai Motor chairman Chung Mong-koo.
The problem with their testimony is that the mere mention of their names as witnesses may tarnish the image of the corporations under their control. The damage done to the businesses appear to be of no concern to lawmakers. But who are the lawmakers to lecture and humiliate such business leaders in public?
The number of civilians testifying before the National Assembly, many of them being businessmen, is on the rise ― 179 during the 17th National Assembly and 267 during the 18th National Assembly. There will certainly be more if no action is taken. But this trend must not be allowed to continue.
Lawmakers and their parties should be reminded again that their target of inspection is not private businesses but government agencies and organizations under their control. All that lawmakers will have to do during the inspection is to deal with policy implementation by government agencies and organizations.
