Voters will fail poor-performing lawmakers in next year`s elections

Lawmakers have proposed 15,172 bills in the 19th National Assembly. As of Sunday, 1,746 bills, or 11.5 percent of the total, have been passed. Roughly, just one out of 10 bills was passed. According to the result of a study conducted jointly by the Dong-A Ilbo, the Citizens United for Better Society and the Good Law Organization, the passage rate of lawmaker-proposed bills has continued to decline from 27 percent in the 16th National Assembly to 21.2 percent in the 17th, and to 13.6 percent in the 18th. This suggests that the current National Assembly showed the highest rate of failing to get bills passed after introducing them without carefully studying the validity and effectiveness.

Even many of the bills that were passed reflected belated or rough-and-ready legislation. The special law on the sunken ferry Sewol and a law requiring day care centers to install closed-circuit television systems were enacted after fatal accidents occurred. The anti-corruption law was entangled in controversies over its unconstitutionality. Since the implementation of a law that bans a majority party from unilaterally railroading bills in 2012, opposition parties have often linked the passage of a politically controversial bill with another, completely unrelated one, preventing such bills from being passed in a timely manner. The bill for the promotion of the services industry has been pending in the parliament for nearly four years because the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy opposed the bill, claiming that the bill would pave the way for the privatization of medical services.

If the Korea-China free trade agreement, which the National Assembly has postponed the ratification process because of the opposition party`s call for complementary measures, fails to take effect before next year, Korea is expected to suffer from 6 trillion won (5.3 billion U.S. dollars) in trade and other losses. If the opposition party links up the current controversies over state-published history textbooks with laws for promoting the tourism industry, enhancing corporate activities and reform the labor market, the bills` goals of reinvigorating domestic consumption and creating more jobs cannot be achieved.

Before the 2012 parliamentary and presidential elections, the ruling and opposition parties pledged parliamentary and political reforms, including giving up lawmakers` privileges. However, lawmakers have implemented little reform to just show off to the public. Eighteen lawmakers have lost their seats in the National Assembly due to election law violations or corruption. Six other lawmakers have received court sentences that would cost their seats if the lower courts` decisions are upheld by the Supreme Court. It is no wonder that in a Gallup Korea survey conducted in early October, 82 percent of those polled said that the 19th National Assembly "did not do a good job."

Ahead of the parliamentary review of the administration`s 386.7 trillion-won (341.5 billion dollars) budget proposal for 2016, lawmakers of four standing committees are calling for an increase of 6.1 trillion won (5.4 billion dollars) in the budget for pork-barrel projects. Such a move foretells fierce competitions among lawmakers for securing budgets for pork-barrel projects before the April 2016 parliamentary elections. The electorate will make a stern judgment in the elections against those lawmakers who focused on protecting their own personal and factional interest while abandoning their duties mandated by the voters.