[Editorial] Tasks left undone

The current extraordinary session is virtually the final time the 18th National Assembly will sit. When its plenary session is over next Thursday, all members, except for those planning to leave the parliament, will start to prepare themselves in earnest for the April 11 general elections.

The immediate concern of incumbent lawmakers is whether or not they will be nominated again. It may be too much to demand they focus on lawmaking at a time when the nomination processes are under way in their parties. No wonder bills left unattended have piled up at each standing committee.

Even so, lawmakers are called on to act on some bills whose passage is long overdue. Among them is a revision to the pharmaceutical law, which the relevant committee put on its calendar on Tuesday ― six months after the government announced the law would be revised in favor of sales of over-the-counter drugs at stores open 24 hours a day.

The committee on health and welfare decided to deliberate on the revision bill, not on its own, but under pressure from civic groups threatening to launch a campaign against the re-election of incumbent lawmakers who obstruct the bill’s passage.

The delay resulted from the lobbying of the Korean Pharmaceutical Association, a powerful special interest group for pharmacists, which opposed the proposal to sell cough drops, painkillers and other over-the-counter drugs at supermarkets and discount stores.

The special interest group refused to pay attention to the inconvenience consumers were experiencing in buying over-the-counter drugs during holidays. Instead it made dubious claims against the safety of drugs sold at those stores.

Though the bill is placed on the calendar in six months, there is no guarantee that the committee will approve it without any further delay so that it can be passed in the plenary session. Many of its members are still reluctant to approve the bill and, by doing so, offend 50,000 members of the Korean Pharmaceutical Association.

But their inaction will invite a campaign to boycott them in the upcoming parliamentary elections. One of the civic groups advocating the early passage of the bill promises to put pressure on the political parties not to nominate any of the lawmakers opposing the bill.

The legislature is called on to pass the bill before it closes its current session. That will be the minimum that can be done by the outgoing National Assembly.