By Jun Ji-hye
The two rivaling parties’ confrontation over the nation’s spy agency’s intervention in the presidential election and late Roh Moo-hyun’s alleged denial of the Northern Limit Line’s (NLL) validity is expected to disrupt parliamentary sessions to handle bills on people’s livelihood and political reforms.
The ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) earlier agreed to deal with policies related to economic democratization and minimizing lawmakers’ vested rights this month. Among the bills to be considered are those to prevent unfair activities by conglomerates against their subcontractors such as the so-called “Namyang Dairy law.” The firm was accused by its sales agents in April of forcing them to buy more products than they needed as well as stocking products with very close expiry dates.
The Assembly also planned to handle bills that will tighten the rules on lawmakers holding extra jobs and to review their pension benefits.
However, bickering over the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the late liberal president have so far put these issues aside.
The ruling party accused the late Roh of allegedly agreeing to make concessions regarding the Northern Limit Line (NLL) during the 2007 inter-Korean Summit with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He is reported to have said that he will accept the North’s position that the NLL, the de facto border in the West Sea, was invalid.
Former head of the spy agency, Won Sei-hoon, was indicted without physical detention by the prosecution on June 14 on charges of illegally ordering NIS agents to post online comments to discredit Moon Jae-in, the DP candidate, during the Dec 19 presidential election.
The conflict is expected to continue for a while as the two sides still go head to head about the timing of when to disclose the minutes of the summit and when to launch the parliament investigation into the NIS scandal.
The ruling party is calling for the immediate disclosure of excerpts of the transcripts purporting to reveal when the comments in question were made.
“We urge the DP to agree on immediately opening the transcripts to the public, along with the parliament investigation into Roh’s controversial comments,” said Rep. Min Hyun-joo, the ruling party spokeswoman, Sunday.
“Investigation into the NIS case by the Assembly could be conducted later after the prosecution finishes its part on the DP’s alleged violation of the rights of an NIS agent when it attempted to raid her residence last December and prevented her from leaving.”
In return, the DP in its counter argument said “investigation into the NIS case first, disclosure of transcripts later.”
“The Assembly investigation into the NIS should always come before the disclosure of transcripts of the summit dialogue,” said Park Yong-jin, DP spokesman.
Park stressed that the ruling party had already agreed on the Assembly investigation of the NIS case in March.
“Immediate launching of the investigation will be the only way for them to discharge their responsibility, as it is clear that they reopened the NLL issue, which they used to attack the DP during the presidential election, to water down the controversy regarding the NIS,” said Park.
Park added that Saenuri lawmakers’ disclosure of parts of the summit dialogue is totally illegal and accused Cheong Wa Dae of closing its eyes, calling on the presidential office to take responsibility.
Critics, however, say that such conflicts between rival parties have no bearing whatsoever to the need to improving people’s livelihood or the national interest. The only result will be a further deepening of the ideological conflicts within the nation.
“True politics has just disappeared. Old battle surrounding the NLL and the NIS has overshadowed all discussion on people’s livelihood, which is not good,” said Chung Goon-gi, a professor at the Journalism and Media Department of Kyonggi University.