Shame on National Assembly

Lawmakers should no longer delay 2020 budget bill

The ruling and opposition parties cannot deflect criticism for failing to pass the government's 2020 budget plan by the legal deadline which was Monday. Whatever the reason, the failure left more shame on the 20th-term National Assembly which has been hit hard by partisan struggles and political bickering.

Yet it is not so surprising because the Assembly has not met the deadline for five straight years. It was easy to predict such a shameful outcome, considering the current political deadlock between the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP). Nonetheless, nothing can justify their inability to deal with the spending bill by the deadline.

How can lawmakers carry out their legislative work without abiding by the laws that they have made? They should no longer ignore the public's cynicism that legislators make laws only to break them. In this sense, they should rather be called “lawbreakers.” What a shame! They must be held accountable for not only dereliction of duty, but also violating the Constitution.

Article 54-2 of the supreme law stipulates that the executive shall formulate the budget bill for each fiscal year and submit it to the National Assembly at least 90 days before the beginning of a fiscal year. It also calls for the Assembly to decide upon the bill no later than 30 days before the beginning of the fiscal year. This means that the Assembly should deal with the bill by Dec. 2.

According to the article, the Moon Jaein administration presented next year's budget plan to the Assembly in September. But lawmakers belonging to the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts only began discussions on the spending bill belatedly on Oct. 28. They should have completed the deliberation process by the end of November if they wanted to put the bill to a vote in a plenary session of the Assembly by the deadline.

The process has been regrettably delayed due to some procedural matters, a hunger strike by LKP Chairman Hwang Kyoahn, and the LKP's threatened filibuster on all 199 pending bills. It is still unclear whether the budget will be approved by Dec. 10 when this year's last regular Assembly plenary session ends. The session has been stalled by the conservative opposition party's threat to use a filibuster in a bid to block the passage of two contentious bills on electoral and prosecutorial reform.

The LKP faces criticism for stalling the budget and other urgent bills aimed at improving people's livelihoods. It should drop its delaying tactics and return to negotiations to solve the problem through dialogue and compromise. If it cannot do so, it needs to cooperate with the ruling party to at least pass the spending bill as soon as possible. The DPK, for its part, should make more efforts to reach out to the LKP to seek its help to normalize Assembly operations.