2012년 국회법 개정의 효과 연구[A Study on the Effect of the 2012 National Assembly Act Amendment]

The National Assembly Act Amendment, also known as the ‘National Assembly Advancement Act,’ was enacted in 2012 during the 18th National Assembly with the aim of preventing floor violence from disrupting the legislative process. This study will focus on the effects of the amended Act and for this, it first develops a simple theoretical model to reveal what effects would result from the new systems adopted by the Act; particularly, the agenda coordination committee under the standing committee. With the launch of the agenda coordination committee, the 19th National Assembly has witnessed opposition party committee members undertake the role of de facto gatekeeper — the role of standing committee chairperson, which nullifies the allocation of chair position of the standing committees from the ruling and opposition parties. The following describes four hypotheses deduced from the theoretical analysis: 1) legislation will take a longer period of time in the 19th National Assembly than in the 18th; 2) standing committee chairpersons from the ruling party tend to process bills more swiftly than those from the opposition parties in the 18th National Assembly, a distinction that is non-existent in the 19th; 3) the 19th National Assembly has more cosponsorship activities (members from a party choose to cosponsor and sign legislations proposed by different party members); and 4) more bills on the same issue are submitted to the 19th National Assembly than to the 18th. To verify these hypotheses, we analyzed the data on the time spent and results with respect to the legislative process in the 18th and 19th National Assembly. The analysis of the periods for the legislative and standing committee processes uncovers the fact that a bill’s passage took longer in the 19th National Assembly. The empirical data confirmed that the agenda coordination committee is responsible for the delay and less probability of bills undergoing the legislative process, which was also confirmed in the case analysis. An agenda for coordination may be proposed upon request from at least 1/3 of all incumbent members of the standing committee. This means that in the current distribution of seats in the National Assembly, opposition parties as the second largest negotiating body can propose an agenda at any time. To put it another way, opposition parties have the power to make and control agenda decisions, a role that is equivalent to the standing committee chairperson, given in particular that the ruling party alone cannot make agenda decisions in the agenda coordination committee. Thus, the ruling party has no choice but to accept the opposition parties’ requests for adjustment and let itself become overshadowed. Moreover, the adoption of the agenda coordination committee enables opposition parties to insert their ‘frozen’ bills into the ruling party’s ‘frozen’ proposals, resulting in the same passage rate of bills proposed by the ruling and opposition parties. This can be understood as a reflection of the ruling party’s position at present, in which the ruling party, being pressured by the gatekeeping of opposition parties over standing committees and also by the significantly low bill passage rate, has no choice but to accept opposition parties’ request in the negotiation between party floor leaders. This study suggests that the reform of the Act should be directed towards the basic principle of democracy. Specifically, in a representative (parliamentary) democracy, people express their opinion through voting, and the elected majority party and president excercise national policies in a responsible and constitutional manner. Additionally, they take full responsibility of their actions when their achievements and performance are evaluated by voters in the following election. When the unelected party is given dominant power over the entire National Assembly under the pretext of protecting the minority, this will only confuse voters as to who should be held accountable for government administration in the following election. This could hinder the public’s confidence in the government and eventually the foundation of representative democracy. When the elected party cannot properly excercise its legislative power, it may resort to expedient means such as revision of administrative regulations including decrees, instead of making laws. The continuance of such a predicament can be liken to abandoning democratic control over legislative power and administration held by the legislature. In other words, the National Assembly itself, which should exercise democratic control over the administration, is discarding its legislative power, allowing non-democratic aspects to broaden further. There could be several alternatives aimed at the reform of the Act, but the decision is up to the National Assembly. Situations can change depending on the election outcome; the ruling party today can become an opposition party tomorrow. Also, although currently, the ruling party has more seats, this could change in the future. This study suggests that a legislative system should be developed in which the ruling party fully reflects the voice of opposition parties —the position which the ruling party could be in—while the opposition parties develop a system under which the ruling party will be held accountable in the following election in compliance with the principles of democracy.