Assembly passes all 4 broadcasting bills despite ruling party objection

All four contentious bills aimed at reducing the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s influence over public broadcasters here were passed by the opposition-led National Assembly Tuesday.

The Assembly passed the revision to the Korea Educational Broadcasting System Act, railroaded by the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, in a 189-0 vote during a plenary session in the morning.

The move marks the passage of the last of four contentious broadcasting bills, with the amendments to the Broadcasting Act, the Foundation for Broadcast Culture Act and the Act on the Establishment and Operation of Korea Communications Commission having passed earlier this month.

The Assembly’s latest decision was met by strong protest from lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party as they left the premises before the plenary voting took place. The ruling party lawmakers had just ended their combined six-day back-to-back filibusters that kicked off Thursday in an attempt to prevent the passage of the bills.

With Yoon expected to exercise his veto power over the bills, the presidential office was cautious in its initial response.

"It is the presidential office's stance that the ruling and the main opposition parties must come up with a joint resolution (on the four broadcasting bills) after coming to an agreement," the official at the presidential office, who declined to be named, told reporters in the afternoon.

"We will make the final decisions after considering such (possible steps)," the official added.

The official's remarks follow People Power Party Floor Leader Rep. Choo Kyung-ho's announcement saying that the ruling party plans to suggest Yoon veto the bills in a rally staged after the opposition-led vote.

“We plan to suggest that President Yoon exercises his veto power to fulfill our responsibility as the ruling party,” Choo said.

Choo labeled the four broadcasting bills as an “evil” attempt by the Democratic Party to cement its alliance with one of the country’s largest umbrella unions, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and “permanently control” public broadcasters.

“(The bills) are evil (attempts) to hand the public broadcasters over to the Democratic Party of Korea for permanent control, which had been controlled by the previous Moon Jae-in administration and the KCTU,” he added.

Yoon is expected to veto the bills, mirroring his decision last year to return the set of similar broadcasting bills to the previous 21st Assembly. The opposition-led 21st Assembly passed the set of bills, excluding the revision to the Act on the Establishment and Operation of Korea Communications Commission, which was later scrapped in a revote.

A shared goal of the broadcasting bills is to change the governance structure of the public broadcasters and hand the power to appoint board directors and leadership to outside experts and the public.

The People Power Party has denounced the bills as an attempt by the left to regain power over public broadcasters by appointing progressive board directors after President Moon Jae-in left office in 2022. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has claimed the current Yoon administration has exercised excessive influence over the broadcasters.

For example, the revision to the Foundation for Broadcast Culture Act, passed last week, seeks to increase the number of board directors at public broadcaster MBC from the current nine to 21. Outside experts coupled with committees formed of viewers would be handed the power to nominate and appoint the board members, alongside officials at the Assembly and state-run watchdog Korea Communications Commission.