[Focus] Economic reform bills might stall

It looks probable that a raft of bills affecting economic reforms and the daily life of the people will not pass the current extraordinary session of the National Assembly.

The regular session, which ended Dec. 9, failed to act on them. Indifference or partisan interests among individual lawmakers largely have been responsible for the inaction.

As the failed passage of the bills will do disservice to the ordinary citizens the parliamentary negligence is bound to fuel further criticism of the political circles.

According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy on Sunday, the National Assembly¡¯s finance-economy committee shelved debate on an amendment to the consumer protection law calling for an emergency recall order by the government against a critically defective product and making a recommendation to its producer for voluntary recall.

As the assemblymen deferred their deliberations on the grounds of the pressure of time to study too many bills, ministry officials said, their plan to enforce the law next April upon its timely amendment and proclamation might go down the drain. Failure of the legislature to take up a revision to the tobacco business law aimed at abolishing the monopoly by the Korea Tobacco and Ginseng Corp. and liberalizing cigarette manufacturing next January is likely to delay the proposed privatization of the public corporation.

On the pretext of preventing abuse in investigating political funds, a number of lawmakers postponed discussions of the law for regulating and punishing "criminal receipts" that seek to strengthen penalties on the laundering of money and another law on the reporting and utilization of information about certain financial transactions. The two laws were drafted to cope with the adverse effects of the second-stage foreign exchange liberalization to be implemented in January.

Other bills, such as new legislation on sales by home visits, e-commerce or mail, were drowned out in the course of partisan wrangling over other political agenda. The new law would obligate multi-stage salespeople to subscribe to consumer damage insurance and prescribe measures to protect and compensate for the losses by consumers in the course of electronic commerce.

The extra house meeting that opened Dec. 11 will last through Jan. 9.