Rep. Lee Hahn-koo, former floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party. (Photo: Rep. Lee Hahn-koo's Office)

Rep. Lee Hahn-koo, former floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, has been promoting a revision of the National Assembly Law to regulate excess legislation activities by legislators so they would not burden the treasury, environment, employment, or fair competition through a more stringent examination of the legislative activities by the National Assembly before they are implemented in order to ensure that they undergo similar procedures as government-proposed legislation at the stage of sub-committee deliberation.

The legislative proposals by legislators are often done without ample examination on how they would effect the national economy, unlike the legislative proposals made by the government, and thus allows legislators extreme liberties in their proposals.

Thus Rep. Lee’s legislative moves to regulate the legislative activities by legislators will require a paper calling for regulatory check ups before legislators take action.

The subcommittees will be required to evaluate the regulative impact paper submission on such matters as treasury burden, environment, employment, and fair competition and provide scientific materials when the regulatory impact evaluation is made. Alternative legislative proposals made by subcommittees alternate should be put under scrutiny just as those made by legislators.

The legislative proposal to limit the legislative activities of legislators is intended to prevent legislators from coming up with various legislative proposals to gain popularity by making possible evaluations based on scientific materials when the proposed legislative pieces are under subcommittee deliberation. The move is to encourage autonomous economic activities in the private sector, healthier treasury conditions, fair competition, and environmentally-friendly regulatory reform, among others. The move is also aimed at invigorating investments to create jobs and reduce expenses during the process of legislative moves as well as social conflicts, while raising the chance for the approval of legislation considered appropriate by the subcommittees.

Despite the government’s moves to restrict the number of regulatory legislative proposals registered with the Regulatory Reform Committee, they have increased to 14,648 cases in 2012 from 11,303 in 2009 and to 15,025 as of August 19 this year. The situation has been attributed to the government’s call for creative economic policies and increases in welfare, causing legislators to initiate their own legislative actions in connection with the government’s legislative moves.

The government’s legislative proposals to create new government regulations or strengthen the existing ones go through discussions and opinions of many professionals to analyze their impacts, along with those of the National Assembly Regulatory Reform Committee.

But those proposed by legislators cannot be discussed as widely as those initiated by the government and the legislative pieces all too often don’t contain a means by which to regulate them.

The government sometimes submits legislative proposals in the names of legislators to avoid the scrutiny, taking advantage of the current system.

The legislative moves to curb excess legislative activities of legislators are also meant to prevent the abuse of the rights of the legislators to initiate legislative proposals and upgrade the quality of various legislative proposals made by legislators. The proposed legislation is intended to encourage the legislative activities by legislators, but to see that they go through the same scrutiny that government-proposed legislation goes through, such as the impacts in such areas as treasury burdens, environment, employment, and fair competition to make the approval process of those legislative pieces very scientific.

Publisher Elizabeth M. Oh