Final Agreement Between Ruling and Opposition Floor Leaders... 'Controversy Over Careless Writing' Secret Ballot to Be Electronic by Default

Joo Ho-young Floor Leader's Term Ends on 7th
Efforts to Prioritize April Passage of National Assembly Act Amendments and More

Joo Ho-young, the floor leader of the People Power Party, whose term is about to expire, and Park Hong-geun, the floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, have reached a final agreement.

On the 4th, under the chairmanship of National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo, Floor Leader Joo and Floor Leader Park held a meeting and produced a memorandum of understanding on the bills to be handled in the extraordinary session of the National Assembly. Key agenda items for the April National Assembly, such as the Nursing Act and the Grain Management Act, were excluded.

After meeting at the Speaker's office in the morning, Speaker Kim and the floor leaders of the two parties announced a memorandum stating, "The Democratic Party of Korea and the People Power Party agree to make efforts to prioritize the review and passage of bills related to the improvement of National Assembly operations and bills concerning livelihood and reform within April." This memorandum is effectively the last agreement between Floor Leader Joo, whose term ends on the 7th, and Floor Leader Park, whose term ends at the end of this month.

As Floor Leader Joo will be replaced on the 7th and Floor Leader Park at the end of this month, they agreed on a minimal legislative schedule during the leadership transition period.

The memorandum includes seven bills. First, there is a proposal to amend the National Assembly Act to use electronic devices as a principle for all secret ballots conducted in the plenary session instead of handwritten secret ballots. In February, during the vote on the arrest motion for Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party, controversy arose because the handwriting on the manual ballot was not clearly interpreted. Since the characters 가 and 부 must be written clearly, measures were prepared to prevent the recurrence of disputes over how to handle ballots when handwriting is cursive.

Speaker of the National Assembly Kim Jin-pyo is holding a meeting with floor leaders of negotiation groups at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul on the 4th. From the left, Joo Ho-young, floor leader of the People Power Party, Speaker Kim, and Park Hong-geun, floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

The memorandum also includes a bill to amend the National Assembly Act to allow up to three representative sponsoring members from different parties when proposing a bill, and a bill to amend the Public Official Election Act to define the presidential inauguration time as the time of the oath-taking ceremony.

Additionally, the memorandum contains ▲ a revision of the Criminal Act to improve the elements of the crime of obstruction of business and reduce the statutory penalty to ensure that the legitimate exercise of rights by workers and other socially vulnerable groups is not suppressed ▲ an amendment to the Civil Act to improve the legal status of animals by stipulating that animals are not objects ▲ an amendment to the Act on the Protection of Financial Consumers to impose overdue interest only on the overdue portion in case of partial loan delinquency ▲ and an amendment to the Medical Service Act to mandate the installation of a hospice room in medical institutions of a certain scale or larger, such as general hospitals.

The 'core bills' expected to see strong confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties in this month's National Assembly were not included in the memorandum. These include the Nursing Act and Medical Service Act, which the parties agreed to continue discussing, as well as the Safe Freight Rates System and the Yellow Envelope Act, which the Democratic Party is strongly pushing.

Floor Leader Joo and Floor Leader Park met at the Speaker's office that day and exchanged kind words. Floor Leader Joo said, "Floor Leader Park consulted on many matters according to the principles of parliamentary democracy, listened to our circumstances, and when unable to accommodate, explained the reasons, which was a great help. Among the three times I have served as floor leader, he was the most comfortable and the person with whom I could speak freely."

Floor Leader Park said, "With his gentle personality and rational judgment, and above all, having almost weekly private meals where we candidly discussed various issues, I think we spent more time together and had more mutual respect than any previous floor leaders."