Legislative freedom is a key element of democracy, but an act designed to aid the process is bogging down the National Assembly.
Lawmakers in Seoul have been fighting a war of words over the so-called National Assembly Advancement Act for months, with the bickering still going strong even though the two main parties appeared to be moving toward a detente on Tuesday.
The advancement act involves amendments made in 2012 to the country’s lawmaking process. The revisions added checks against the majority party, to prevent it from unilaterally passing controversial legislation using its majority.
The changes mandated filibusters for minority groups, and curbed the authority of the house speaker, whose party affiliation often lies with the majority, among other measures.
But key leaders of the governing Saenuri Party ― which holds a majority with 158 of the legislature’s 300 seats ― have lately called for scrapping the amendments. They charge that the new rules could hurt the national interest by knocking down “critical” draft legislations, while main opposition party New Politics Alliance for Democracy officials balk at the ruling party’s suggestions.
At the heart of the Saenuri lawmakers’ argument against the advancement act is the controversial “three-fifths principle.”
For a draft law to receive ultimate approval at the Assembly, it must receive majority approval at three levels: first at the committee level, second at the Legislation & Judiciary Committee, and third at a plenary session.
But the judiciary committee chair ― usually an opposition official ― reserves the right to withhold all bills, except budget-related legislation, from going over to the third review stage.
To overrule the judiciary committee chair, the advancement act says, three-fifths of lawmakers at the initial parliamentary committee which examined the bill at the first review must sign a petition.
But since no party holds a three-fifths majority in 23 of the 24 permanent and special committees, a draft bill could be indefinitely blocked from passing. This has apparently scared members of the majority Saenuri Party.
“The so-called National Assembly advancement act threatens the very roots of democracy by denying voting in the parliament,” Saenuri representative and current Minister of Finance Choi Kyung-hwan said last Friday.
Saenuri Party chair Rep. Kim Moo-sung also criticized the 2012 amendments last month, saying, “The advancement act should be called the impairment act.” Other Saenuri officials have chimed in, with some even making preparations to take the advancement act to the Constitutional Court of Korea, hoping justices will rule the new law unconstitutional.
Unease about the advancement act was not limited to the Saenuri Party.
“Passing legislation (in the National Assembly) has become a herculean effort,” read a Sept. 20 article on The Diplomat, a current affairs magazine based in Tokyo.
The critics of the advancement act, however, may have overlooked a noteworthy fact.
“This new mechanism has never been tested,” says Chung Jin-min, professor of politics at Myongji University in Seoul. “So, how do we know if this three-fifths rule is as debilitating as the Saenuri Party says if we have never actually seen it used?”
Chung adds that too many commentators have mistakenly viewed the National Assembly advancement act as the prime cause of the recent parliamentary deadlock over the special Sewol bill.
“The deadlock was caused by the partisan divisions over the Sewol bill, nothing more,” Chung says. “No draft bills were ‘stonewalled’ by the three-fifth rule, deadlocking the parliament, as many reports appear to hint, because the new rule was never used.”
The NPAD and the governing party were locked in a legislative standstill from August until Sept. 30 due to disagreements over the Sewol bill. The main opposition party sat out all sessions at the Assembly to protest the Saenuri Party’s stance on the bill.
The stalemate ended when floor leaders of the parties signed off on a basic framework over the contentious bill on the last day of September. They postponed discussions on the draft bill’s specific articles to sometime before November. On Tuesday, parties agreed to form a task force to continue discussions.
A letter written by a Saenuri Party lawmaker on Oct. 2 supported assertions concerning the irrelevance of the advancement act to the latest parliamentary gridlock.
“I would like to ask if any more of us really think the recent impasse was caused by the National Assembly Act,” ruling party Rep. Kim Se-yeon said.
“Doesn’t the fact that the deadlock ended without any revision to the ‘advancement act’ show that the new law had nothing to do with the deadlock?”
Misleading statements about the advancement act must be stopped, Kim added.
In one instance the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. nonpartisan think tank, said in an Aug. 27 article that the National Assembly had been “prone to deadlock along party lines in the absence of compromise” as the Saenuri Party only held “158 seats in the 300-seat assembly.”
The statements appear to imply that all recent bill-passing at South Korea’s legislature since the advancement act’s initiation had required 180 of the 300 lawmakers to approve a draft bill, Chung said.
All the misunderstandings aside, Chung said South Korea had to give the advancement act “a serious try.”
“The amendments force lawmakers to consult, compromise and work out a deal. This stands in stark contrast with the past, when the majority party was able to unilaterally pass through controversial bills.
“We need a new political culture,” Chung said.
Rep. Kim of the governing party echoed the comments in his letter earlier this month.
“There is something called a learning curve. Nothing is perfect from the start.”
By Jeong Hunny (hj257@heraldcorp.com)
