[Editorial] Lawlessness in Assembly

Members of the five opposition parties continued their “seizure” of the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee chamber for a full week. They were trying to deter the ruling Grand National Party from passing the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement bill through the legislative panel.

Lawmakers and staff from the opposition parties are joining in the illegal obstruction of the legislative procedures in violation of the National Assembly Law as well as Criminal Code provisions regarding the performing of official duties. These illegal occupants have prevented Chairman Nam Kyung-pil of the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee and other members of the panel from taking their seats to open deliberation of the FTA bill.

These acts of lawlessness are being perpetrated in full view of the nation, shown on TV newscasts every day and published in newspaper articles alongside stories of inter-party negotiations. But the people of the Republic of Korea have become so accustomed or immune to such practices that no one has yet filed a legal complaint. Ruling party lawmakers are more concerned about the inevitable altercation that could result when they try to remove the intruders from the committee chamber with the help of Assembly guards.

Illegal occupation of Assembly chambers during serious disputes is not uncommon in Korea’s legislature. Maybe, one reason for the GNP’s refraining from employing physical means to end the act of obstruction is that it had done the same during its decade in opposition. Not only committee chambers but the main Assembly hall has occasionally been occupied by opposition members. Sometimes, ruling party members did so at times when they were in the minority.

Nam and some other lawmakers had vowed not to engage in ugly “physical fights” in the Assembly under any circumstances, and he has so far kept his promise. This means he is wise enough to calculate the political consequences of putting a forceful end to the oppositionists’ occupation of the committee chamber. Besides, he could wait for the Assembly speaker’s direct forwarding of the FTA bill to the plenary session, skipping the committee deliberations, although Speaker Park Hee-tae has not consented to it yet.

The main opposition Democratic Party demands that the Korea-U.S. FTA bill should be put to a national referendum at the time of the general elections next April. If approved in the vote, the bill should then be acted on by the next legislature, DP’s chair Sohn Hak-kyu says. Having been the government party when the FTA was signed in 2007 and having raised no objection to the “investor-state dispute” clause when Seoul and Washington renegotiated on the trade pact last year, the DP has a very thin case for its present anti-KORUS FTA actions.

Even if the opposition parties have a modicum of justification, it is lost in the lawlessness they are perpetrating in the National Assembly.