The 19th National Assembly has been elected and the outgoing 18th Assembly will finish its term at the end of May. This means that the current legislature has only a month to act on the bills submitted to it since its inauguration in 2008.
As proof of the low productivity of our representatives and their parties, there are more than 6,000 bills pending in the Assembly, about 400 of them proposed by the administration. If these bills are not handled during the final session of the present Assembly, they will automatically be scrapped and sent to the shelves of the Assembly library.
About 60 bills have already been approved by pertinent standing committees but were not put to vote because of conflicting partisan interests or simply due to procedural inefficiency of the legislature. They include the important defense reform bill to streamline armed forces command structure and an array of bills related to the people’s everyday lives. The Blue House is anxious to have these that are identified with the administrative endeavors of President Lee Myung-bak.
The 18th Assembly had a parallel tenure with Lee’s. What the people remember most acutely about the interactions between the two branches of government during the past four years is the tussle over the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement and the Sejong City bill. The Korea-U.S. FTA, signed during the previous administration in 2007, was finally ratified last November amid the smoke from a tear gas grenade detonated by an opposition lawmaker. The Sejong City bill to convert a planned administrative city into a business and research complex was voted down as a ruling party faction took sides with the opposition.
The fates of these landmark bills well explain how complex partisan politics has deterred the legislature from working productively and in the interests of the people. There were diligent representatives who made solitary efforts to find what their constituents needed and drafted bills through laborious research. But months and years have passed while their party leaders were engaged routinely in political battles, sparing little time for constructive lawmaking.
Nearly half of the members of the present legislature will not return to Yeoeuido when the 19th Assembly is inaugurated in June, having been dropped in the party nomination process or defeated in the April 11 vote. Whatever political career they may plan for the future, they can have a meaningful closure of their service with the current Assembly by faithfully acting on bills when an extraordinary session opens later this month.
The Saenuri, Democratic United and United Progressive parties all had extremely difficult campaigns after renaming or restructuring themselves before the election, aware how much voters have been disappointed by their performances over the past four years. Each will need to form a new leadership to reflect the election results.
All these parties issued statements following the election pledging that they would “humbly” accept the people’s will exhibited in their votes. The best way for the parties to show their sincerity before the electorate is to engage earnestly in the legislative business in the final few weeks of the outgoing Assembly. They should cooperate with each other to put to the vote as many bills as possible so that long-pending, politically insensitive ones can be saved.
The defense reform bill is one of the most urgent legislative tasks, considering the pressing necessity of consolidating the combined command structure for the three branches of the military before the takeover of wartime operational control from the United States in 2015. Also pending are the revision bill to the Pharmaceutical Business Law to allow sales of over-the-counter drugs at convenience stores ― one of the so-called “people’s livelihood bills” ― the North Korean human rights bill, and the revision to the Location Information Law to enable law enforcement authorities to trace signals from mobile phones in an emergency.
Because of the upcoming presidential election, 2012 is going to be a big year in politics, with parties entering the election mode again as soon as the new Assembly opens. Our politicians should be reminded that the best campaign is to demonstrate that they care about the people’s wellbeing most and that neglecting legislative work is the worst thing in this political year. They can best impress the people by keeping in their seats in the Assembly chamber to vote on bills even during the final weeks of the outgoing Assembly.
