South Korea’s Legislature Paralyzed, Yet Again

South Korea’s National Assembly has 18 standing committees. They are important; every single piece of proposed legislation has to go through one of them before it can be fielded to the National Assembly floor for a vote.

In early June, a spat erupted between the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and the opposition Democratic Party (DP) over selecting heads of these committees. The DP, given their parliamentary majority of 175 out of 300 seats, notified the PPP that they would select the heads of 11 committees from their rank. But the PPP insisted on putting their own members at the helm of the House Steering Committee and the Legislative and Judiciary Committee.

Control over these two committees is particularly important. The former has oversight jurisdiction over the presidential office, and the latter over the Justice Ministry and the Corruption Investigation Office. They have power to summon and grill virtually anyone.

The authorities have steered clear of investigating First Lady Kim Keon-hee for her acceptance of designer products in exchange for political favors (one instance of which was caught on camera) and for her participation in stock manipulation schemes (she is known to have been involved, but the scope of her awareness of the illegality hasn’t been determined).

Since the matter concerns both the presidential office, corruption, and the judiciary, the PPP desperately wanted to lead the relevant National Assembly committees and evade humiliating public hearings and more investigations.

Besides, the Legislative and Judiciary Committee has the final say over the wording and format of every piece of legislation, which can allow whichever party controls it to tweak or deny content it doesn’t like.

Of course, the DP didn’t accede to the PPP’s demand. Nobody was willing to budge on this point, halting the bipartisan negotiation. The DP decided on their candidates for the 11 committees, tossing the rest for the PPP to decide. The PPP boycotted all proceedings.

On June 10, the speaker of the National Assembly had no choice but to call for parliamentary votes to elect the heads. (As per the National Assembly Act, legislators have to elect committee heads no later than three days after the first assembly since the general elections.)

As the PPP refused to choose committee heads for the remaining seven, the votes proceeded just for the 11 committees that had DP nominees. The PPP members didn’t attend the session, instead staging a sit-in outside of the speaker’s office. The DP went ahead and elected the committee heads, as a simple parliamentary majority is all that’s required.

Then, comic scenes erupted. The DP-controlled standing committees held their sessions, but the PPP members and ministers summoned for interviews went AWOL. They swore to stay out of the DP-dominated National Assembly, instead holding parallel, extrajudicial intra-party committees mimicking the official ones. Choo Kyung-ho, the PPP minority whip, pledged to hamper the DP-led legislation by “imploring presidential vetos.”

All 108 PPP legislators filed a joint complaint to the Constitutional Court to nullify the DP’s appointments, arguing that the DP trampled the principle of parliamentary cooperation in such matters as electing the speaker and committee members and reviewing legislation. Meanwhile, the DP maintains that, given the government’s corruption and incompetence, this is precisely what the majority of voters authorized them to do through the general elections. The DP’s actions all conform to the National Assembly Act.

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s Cabinet and the PPP members ignored the standing committees’ call for attendance. Although the constitution requires government officials to turn up and answer the committees’ questions regarding state affairs, there’s no clause detailing the consequences for giving the committees the cold shoulder.

In response, the DP threatened to turn their hearings into audits and investigations. If so, the committees would get to “summon” the Cabinet and other legislators, or anyone for that matter, as “witnesses.” In this case, not clocking in could result in up to three years of imprisonment. The committees can also issue their witnesses a “warrant of accompanying,” non-compliance of which leads to up to five years of imprisonment.

The PPP is framing the whole fracas as the DP’s “parliamentary dictatorship.” It is seriously considering giving up the rest of the committees to the DP to reinforce this narrative. Yet such a decision comes with two disadvantages.

First, the PPP can’t participate in and take credit for some laws in the pipeline that enjoy bipartisan, as well as public, support. Currently, pregnancy leave is one year for each newborn and capped at two years. Both parties have been working on a bill to extend it to 18 months, applicable to both parents, and to prolong paid leave. It has long been anticipated as the first concrete step in a while to encouraging young couples to have children. But if the PPP boycotts the Environmental and Labor Committee, the DP will do the whole review and pass it on the floor all by itself, taking sole credit for a policy widely welcomed by newlyweds.

Another law in the making concerns setting up a legal framework and regulation to construct a storage site for high-level radioactive waste. South Korea has long struggled to find ways to permanently dispose of spent fuel from its nuclear power plants. And because these power plants and temporary storage facilities are in the country’s southeastern part, conservatives’ home ground, the PPP has been working hard on this legislation. Yet, if the PPP gives up fielding their own candidate for the chairpersonship in the Committee for Trade, Industry, and Energy, the DP will legislate alone, raking in all the public goodwill.

Second, the PPP’s concession of control over the committees the DP left up for grabs may spell more trouble for the government. Some legislators from the opposition parties have already expressed their willingness to fill in for these committees and initiate official audits on the context behind Yoon’s abrupt announcement of new offshore drilling for natural gas. (There have been allegations of favoritism in the government’s bidding process for contractors to analyze deep-sea data, and of collusion between government agencies deliberately committing confirmation bias in their reports to please the president.)

The same holds for the National Defense Committee. In case of the PPP’s continued refusal to lead the committee, the committee will keep prying into Yoon’s abuse of power last July, when a marine died because of the top brass’ professional negligence, to cover for his people. The Corruption Investigation Office is already working on the case, and the Legislation and Judiciary Committee held a hearing on June 21, where the implicated figures kept hemming and hawing or refused to answer some questions. Having two committees grilling the involved parties could whip up more intense public interest and fury since their hearings are all broadcast.

If worse comes to worst, out of spite, Yoon may really end up vetoing every single piece of legislation that doesn’t carry the PPP seal, further exacerbating South Korea’s legislative stalemate. So far, the National Assembly has managed to pass only two meaningful laws, one banning the consumption of dog meat and the other forming a special counsel to investigate the Itaewon tragedy. All the others were scrapped due to either the DP’s refusal or presidential veto.

Also, things can turn from pesky to nasty if the PPP members and ministers end up getting arrested over this childish intransigence. This entire series of dramatic standoffs and political posturing will only sour the public sentiment and deepen the political divide.