Act on Anti-national Actions under Japanese Occupation Passed at the National Assembly

The National Assembly held the plenary session on December 29 to form the Investigation Commission as a presidential government organization and processed the “Special Law on Investigation into Anti-national Activities under Japanese Occupation” with the framework of expanding the scope of subjects to be investigated.

At the session, the ruling and the opposition party deleted the word “Pro-Japanese” from the title for diplomatic reasons. This bill is the first to be passed at the plenary of the Assembly out of the so-called “big four” controversial bills.

When this law is put into force in January of next year through the government’s announcement procedure, the Investigation Commission will be launched. The commission is set to run for a maximum of four years and six months after the establishment.

The Culture and Tourism Committee of the National Assembly held an inter-party talk, and reached an agreement to strike out the clauses on obligatory establishment of editorial rules and editorial committee, and on the one limiting advertisement size down to half the full page while retaining the market share restriction clause in the Newspaper Bill. However, some controversy is expected in the administration procedure of the bill as the clause on necessitating impartiality and promotion of public interest is to be left as it is.

Also, the Legislation and Judiciary Committee (LJC) opened a sub-committee for the review of bills and rejected the revision proposal for the act on securities class-action lawsuit containing clauses about excluding past false bookkeeping done by businesses for a certain period of time.

Accordingly, the securities class-action suit system will be enforced on fraudulent bookkeeping done in the past starting from January of next year without a grace period. The LJC, however, made a tentative agreement to discuss complimentary measures over January and February of next year.

Meanwhile, the ruling party and the opposition had a violent clash as the Uri Party tried to put the National Security Law Abolishment bill on the agenda at the LJC general meeting while the Grand National Party members were absent.

Yeon-Wook Jung jyw11@donga.com