Law on Pro-Japanese to be Effective for Affairs from 1904 to 1945

The Legislation and Judiciary Committee (LJC) of the National Assembly opened a sub-committee for legislation deliberation (SCLD) on December 27 about the Pro-Japanese Activities Investigation Act to change the time frame, which designates pro-Japanese activities subject to investigation, to start from the “Post-Russia/Japanese War Era after 1904” instead of “around the time of Japanese occupation,” and passed it over to the plenary session of the Assembly for review.

The executive secretary of the LJC, Jang Yoon-suk from the Grand National Party, said, “The time frame was set to designate a specific time of occurrence of pro-Japanese activities to prevent possible arbitrary implementation of the act.”

On the same day, the SCLD of the committee accepted the proposal made by the Home Affairs and Administration Committee on issues the investigation committee wanted listed under the president and having strict limitations on member selection to include only university professors with 10 or more years of experience.

Accordingly, the act on investigation into pro-Japanese activities is expected to earn approval from the LJC on December 28 and is expected to be put on the agenda of the plenary session of the National Assembly on December 29 or 30.

On the other hand, the SCLD of the LJC agreed on December 27 to the principle behind abolishing the family registration system after looking through the revision proposal on the civil law with the main idea of abolishing the registration system. However, an agreement has not been reached on whether to have a per-capita identification registration system or a family record system as an alternative system to family registration.

Myoung-Gun Lee gun43@donga.com