Deadlock Between Ruling and Opposition Parties... Livelihood Bills Likely to Be Rejected One After Another

Failure to Agree on Plenary Session Agenda
16,000 Bills Pending in the 21st National Assembly
High-Level Radioactive Waste Facility and K-Chips Act Face Collapse Risk

As the ruling and opposition parties failed to agree on the legislative schedule ahead of the final plenary session of the 21st National Assembly, a significant number of livelihood bills are at risk of being discarded. The damage caused by the extreme confrontation between the parties is being directly passed on to the public, leading to growing criticism that the legislative body has failed to fulfill its responsibilities.

According to the National Assembly’s legislative information system on the 27th, a total of 16,386 bills are currently pending in the 21st National Assembly. These bills will be automatically discarded after the 21st National Assembly ends on the 29th. Due to delays in negotiations over contentious bills such as the special investigation law for Chae Sang-byeong and national pension reform, which are sharply opposed by both parties, even livelihood bills are at risk of being discarded one after another.

Specifically, the Special Act on the Management of High-Level Radioactive Waste Facilities for the Construction of Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities is a representative case. The National Assembly’s Industry, Trade, Small and Medium Enterprises Committee is currently negotiating for the special act on high-level radioactive waste disposal facilities to be processed at the final plenary session of the 21st National Assembly, but it remains uncertain whether an agreement will be reached. The special act on high-level radioactive waste disposal facilities is a law that regulates in detail the management of high-level radioactive waste, which in Korea generally refers to spent nuclear fuel with a heat generation rate of 2 kW/m³ or more and a radioactivity concentration of 4,000 becquerels or more per gram.

Currently, there are no high-level radioactive waste disposal facilities in Korea. Spent nuclear fuel is stored in pools within nuclear power plants or, when pool capacity is exceeded, stored and managed in other storage facilities. Temporary storage facilities are expected to reach saturation by 2030, and if the construction of disposal facilities is delayed, there will be no place to store nuclear fuel, which could lead to the suspension of nuclear power plant operations.

Speaker Jinpyo Kim is striking the gavel at the plenary session held at the National Assembly on the 29th. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Legislation promoting childbirth is also on the path to being discarded. The so-called Maternity Protection Act, which extends the parental leave period from the current two years to three years, is currently pending in the Environment and Labor Committee. The Basic Act on Fraud Prevention is also under review in the Legislation and Judiciary Committee. It aims to establish a Fraud Information Analysis Center under the National Police Agency to respond to new types of fraud.

The Tax Special Cases Restriction Act, which raises the tax-exempt limit for Individual Savings Accounts (ISA), and the Tax Special Cases Restriction Act, which reduces individual consumption tax by 70% when old vehicles are replaced with new ones, are also failing to pass the National Assembly. The so-called K-Chips Act, which provides a 25% tax credit on investments in national strategic technology facilities to strengthen the capabilities of Korea’s semiconductor industry, is also pending.

Due to the extreme confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties delaying the processing of various livelihood bills, the 21st National Assembly is expected to record the lowest bill passage rate in constitutional history. As of the 20th of this month, the bill passage rate in the 21st National Assembly stands at about 36.5%, which is expected to be 1 percentage point lower than the 37.85% rate of the 20th National Assembly.