Parliament should give the new gov`t a smooth start

The extraordinary session of the National Assembly for this month, which is set to open Monday, is the first plenary meeting of the legislature to be convened since the inauguration of the presidential transition committee for President-elect Park Geun-hye. Members of the ruling and opposition parties remain the same, but this meeting is significantly different in that it will entail confirmation hearings for the nominees for prime minister and Cabinet members ahead of the government reshuffle. The National Assembly should also prepare a framework for political reform, a pledge given by both the ruling and main opposition parties ahead of the presidential election. President-elect Park and her transition committee can ensure a productive outcome only when they cooperate with political forces.

Above all, parliament should speed up the deliberation of bills on the proposed government reshuffle. If the reorganization is not completed by Feb. 14 as promised by the ruling and opposition parties, the formation of the next Cabinet and confirmation hearings could be delayed in tandem as well. Potentially explosive issues include the work scope of the new Future, Creativity and Science Ministry, which critics call a “dinosaur ministry"; the transfer of the trade function from the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry to the Industry, Commerce and Energy Ministry; promotion of the Small and Medium Business Administration from an administrative office to a lower-level ministry; and the renaming of the Public Administration and Security Ministry and the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry. While they need to meticulously inspect and examine issues that require review for the good of national interests by overcoming partisan interests, the ruling and opposition parties should cooperate to ensure that the new government will be inaugurated seamlessly.

Parliament should also conduct confirmation hearings and votes of approval without delay. To deliberate a bill on approving the prime minister nominee by Feb. 26 as pledged by rival parties, the candidate should be nominated this week and confirmation hearing should be conducted Feb. 18-19. If another candidate drops out of the running like Kim Yong-joon did, President-elect Park will suffer a significant hit to public trust and expectations, and the referral of Cabinet minister candidates to the National Assembly will inevitably be delayed as well. She should use extra caution in selecting a prime minister nominee and thoroughly review if a candidate has moral flaws. While carefully verifying the capacity, qualifications and morality of a candidate, opposition parties should make sure that confirmation hearings will not turn into aggressive publicity and criticism of a candidate’s privacy and means of political struggle. Going forward, the ruling and opposition parties need to improve the confirmation hearing system to raise the efficiency and rationale of the process. Other tough issues faced by this month`s extraordinary parliamentary session are bills on the Taxi Act, which has been sent back to parliament due to President Lee Myung-bak’s veto, and resolving labor problems at Ssangyong Motors. The solutions will come only if the issues are approached on the basis of economic reasoning rather than politics.

Soon after the inauguration of the incumbent National Assembly and in the presidential campaign, rival parties raced to promise reform of parliament and politics, including reduction of lawmakers’ privileges. Nothing has changed since, however. Countless things need change, including a ban on lawmakers holding second jobs, eradication of their pension, reduction of their pay, preventing violence at the National Assembly, improvement of reviews of the state budget, and normalization of the parliamentary ethics committee. Parliament is urged to resume and operate special committees on political reform and budget and state finance reform, and first tackle matters that rival parties have little differences in. This month`s extraordinary session of the National Assembly is hoped to serve as catalyst for new politics.