Uri Party Passes 6 Bills in 25 Minutes

On the afternoon of May 2, with Grand National Party (GNP) absent, the Uri Party managed to hold a National Assembly plenary session with the assistance of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) and Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and passed six bills, including a law that allows residents to recall their elected local representatives and the government to redeem excessive profits earned from reconstruction.

In case of the recall law, if more than 10 to 20 percent of voters sign to recall metropolitan and other local government chiefs and assembly members, recall elections will be held, and if the majority of one third of the voters agrees, then that person will be immediately recalled.

Uri Party argues that recall elections keep local government officials’ abuse of power and corruption in check, but the GNP and some experts demanded a revised legislation citing that recall elections can be abused for political purposes and thus plunge local autonomy into chaos.

National Assembly Speaker Kim, who was confined to the National Assembly Speaker’s Residence by GNP lawmakers, delegated his authority to Vice Speaker Kim Duk-kyu, and he submitted all six laws, including the one on recall elections, and passed all of them in just 25 minutes.

The GNP demanded that the Private School Law be revised first, and expressed opposition to passing the laws, but failed to halt Uri Party’s forced legislation.

Out of the three laws related to real estate, which Uri Party planned to pass on the same day, the Lease Housing Bill, intended to solve the instability of housing tenants, was not submitted due to GNP’s obstruction of assembly procedures.

Sung-Won Park swpark@donga.com