Checks and balances under threat in Assembly

Members of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and Cabinet members participate in a meeting of the National Assembly's Special Committee on Budget and Accounts, Tuesday, to review the third extra budget bill. The empty seats belong to members of the main opposition United Future Party, who boycotted the meeting in protest of the DPK and Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug's unilateral selection of chiefs of standing committees. Yonhap

By Jung Da-min

Concerns are rising over the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) monopoly on decision-making and operation of the 21st National Assembly, as the main opposition United Future Party (UFP) is withholding cooperation amid a bipartisan conflict over standing committees.

Political watchers say the DPK is ignoring one of the basic principles of democracy and Assembly custom of mutual respect and tolerance, while acting as if it is “one team” with the government, rubber-stamping the bills it submits when the Assembly's job is in fact to hold the administration in check.

The rival parties' negotiations on the heads of the Assembly's 18 standing committees broke down Monday morning, after the DPK refused to give chairpersonship of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee to the UFP, a position that has customarily been held by the main opposition party.

After the ruptured talks, the DPK held a plenary session later in the day and unilaterally appointed its own people as heads of the standing committees. It now controls 17 out of the 18, with plans to take over the remaining one after the necessary procedures have been followed. Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug also unilaterally assigned 103 UFP members to the committees, saying it was within his authority as speaker to do so.

While the UFP is boycotting all committee meetings to protest the DPK's “autocracy,” ruling party members and lawmakers of other minor opposition parties held committee meetings, Tuesday, to discuss issues related to the government's third extra budget bill. The DPK is aiming to complete the legislative procedure for the passage of the bill, designed to cope with the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, within the week.

The meetings took only a couple of hours at most, unusually short compared to previous ones, as DPK members did not raise objections to the budget bills. Some lawmakers of the minor opposition Justice Party who took part in the meetings walked out in protest of the “cursory” discussions. “I can't agree with a meeting where lawmakers only focus on passing a bill without reviewing it for at least one day to decide whether the budget has been properly drawn up,” Rep. Jang Hye-young of the Justice Party said.

Besides the extra budget, the Assembly has many more urgent issues to handle, such as the recommendation of chief candidates for a new investigative body that will deal with corruption allegations against high-profile public officials. Although the new organization is set to be launched July 15 according to the relevant law, the deadline is unlikely to be met, as the dispute between the DPK and the UFP is likely to continue for the time being.

Political analysts said the DPK's unilateral operation of the Assembly, taking advantage of its super majority ― 176 out of the total 300 ― is against the principles of democracy and mutual respect.

Park Sung-min, a veteran political consultant, said the DPK was destroying the principles of a democratic Assembly ― mutual respect, tolerance and self-control.

“In politics, an agreed custom is sometimes more important than the law,” he said.

“For a democracy to work, political parties need to abide by two things ― acknowledging the other as a rival, meaning mutual respect, and self-control, meaning using power and authority carefully. These constitute democracy, but the DPK ignored them.”

The consultant said the parties needed to respect the custom that the main opposition party takes the legislation committee head position. “If the DPK wanted the custom to be broken, it should have had a full discussion with the opposition party over it. Breaking the custom by using its power as a super majority party is not right,” he said. “Passing the extra budget bill is important, but the democratic system is more important.”