[Asia Economy Reporter Park Cheol-eung] Park Byeong-seok, Speaker of the National Assembly, expressed the need to introduce a non-face-to-face remote video conferencing system in the National Assembly in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).
In a statement on the 1st, Speaker Park said, "Considering the unique nature of the legislative activities of National Assembly members communicating with citizens across the country, it is necessary to prepare for the worst-case scenario where a significant number of members may be confirmed positive or self-quarantined, potentially paralyzing the operation of the National Assembly."
He continued, "Recently, COVID-19 has resurged mainly in the metropolitan area, with daily confirmed cases exceeding 400 and social distancing in the metropolitan area being raised to level 2, facing a serious situation. Recently, advanced countries' parliaments have been fully adopting remote video conferencing to perform the parliament's inherent roles and functions under the COVID-19 situation," he said.
Speaker Park also emphasized, "There are concerns that the principle of parliamentary sovereignty may be weakened if remote video conferencing is introduced, but if it is institutionalized to operate remotely only minimally and temporarily with bipartisan agreement, those concerns can be dispelled."
Speaker Park sent a letter on the 25th of last month to the representatives of each negotiation group, requesting positive consideration to establish the remote video conferencing infrastructure through bipartisan agreement within this regular session of the National Assembly. The introduction of non-face-to-face remote video conferencing requires an amendment to the National Assembly Act and is currently being discussed by the Subcommittee on Operational Improvement of the National Assembly Steering Committee.
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