Assembly Should Be Open All Year Round

Rival political blocs reached a rare ― and commendable ― bipartisan agreement yesterday to hold a month-long extraordinary National Assembly session.

Lawmakers of the 17th Assembly certainly deserve praise for opening an extra sitting with less than two months left before the expiry of their terms, particularly since 64 percent of the total 299 legislators will not be able to return to parliament in June as members of the 18th Assembly. Another reason the latest parliamentary decision appears quite unusual was that most of the previous bipartisan accords were about their pay raises and overseas tours.

Politicians will have few problems fixing agenda items related with public livelihood until next Friday's opening. However, they are likely to haggle over the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and business deregulation bills, with the latter being called by oppositionists the removal of all shackles on family-controlled conglomerates.

The governing Grand National Party calls for deliberating and ratifying the FTA bill as early as possible to apply pressure to the U.S. Congress to do the same. But the opposition United Democratic Party is balking at it, saying it is too grave an issue to be handled in such a reckless and hurried manner.

Both parties appear to be right ― and wrong ― in part. The Congress is not likely to act on the free trade bill for up to another year no matter what happens here, considering what the U.S. political calendar dictates and the recent killing of a similar bill with Colombia by the House of Representatives, apparently miffed by the Bush administration's pressing.

This should be no reason, however, for Korean parliamentarians to let this bill gather dust for an indefinite period. Parties should resume discussing and verifying the fine print of the accord while there is still time.

These and other episodes show why the Assembly should remain open throughout the year. The 17th Assembly has recorded considerable progress compared to its predecessor in terms of legislation.

A more important mission of the Assembly than legislative activity, however, is properly checking the executive branch by scrutinizing the government budget from its very formation, which is possible only by keeping the parliament, or at least its budget committee, active all year round, as in Japan's Lower House and the Congress's Ways and Means Committee.

However, Korea's parliament is open for about half of the year at most. The 17th Assembly once remained idle for more than 200 days amid partisan bickering over revisions of some disputed bills. A Cheong Wa Dae official was right when he said, ``In advanced countries, parliaments post notifications of recesses, but ours does that when convening a session.''

Whether reelected or not in the April 9 polls, only lawmakers who show maximum sincerity in the upcoming extraordinary session could hope for another chance in the 19th Assembly.