The ruling Saenuri Party is seeking to amend the National Assembly Act, which was revised last year to make it virtually impossible for the majority party to pass bills unilaterally. The party is also planning to file a request with the Constitutional Court for adjudication on the constitutionality of the law.
The present law was enacted toward the end of the 18th National Assembly to root out violence in the Assembly. At the time, public aversion to lawmakers frequently engaging in unseemly brawls in the parliament had reached boiling point.
In many cases, violence erupted as the majority party attempted to force bills through the Assembly. Thus a first step toward curbing violence was to make it more difficult for the majority party to have its way.
Under the old law, the Assembly speaker was empowered to bring any agenda that was left pending in a committee directly to the plenary session. This helped the majority party work around resistance from opposition parties at the committee level.
Under the current law, however, the speaker can exercise the fast-track authority only in the event of a natural disaster, a war or a national emergency.
In normal times, the rival parties are supposed to pass bills through compromise. When opinions differ on a certain bill tabled to a committee, an agenda coordination panel is formed, with an identical number of lawmakers picked from the ruling and opposition parties.
The panel is supposed to discuss the matter for 90 days to reach a compromise. When negotiations fail to resolve differences, the committee is expected to make a decision based on a simple majority vote.
This negotiation process, cumbersome to the majority party, can only be bypassed when more than three-fifths of the members on the committee or three-fifths of all Assembly members decide to have the agenda fast-tracked.
Without doubt, the present law is effective at preventing the majority party from pushing through bills in disregard of minority parties. But it is not without its problems either.
More than anything else, it gives too much leverage to minority parties. Under the current law, they have no need to worry about the majority party passing bills without their consent.
This emboldened lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party to the point of disregarding their legislative duties. They have frequently boycotted Assembly sessions, leaving a host of bills on the back burner. Instead, they have played a dangerous game of partisan one-upmanship.
The resulting legislative paralysis justifies, at least to some degree, the Saenuri Party’s move to amend the current Assembly act. Measures should be taken to prevent minority parties from focusing on partisan politics, leaving the Assembly in a vegetative state.
Yet revising the current law would not be easy, as under it, passage of any bill requires the DP’s endorsement. So the ruling party intends to bring its case to the Constitutional Court. In its view, some of the law’s clauses, including the supermajority rule, go against the Constitution.
However, before seeking to revise the law, the ruling party needs to realize that what matters is not the law itself but the party’s inability to establish a working relationship with the opposition. Making more earnest efforts to accommodate the opposition party’s demands should be the first step.
