Shame on our lawmakers

After the National Assembly on Thursday elected its vice speaker and heads of seven standing committees — whose posts were assigned to the governing People Power Party (PPP) — the new legislature can finally function at full capacity for the first half of its four-year term. The development came 28 days after the 22nd legislature launched last month with the majority Democratic Party (DP)’s landslide victory in the April 10 parliamentary elections. Given the delayed opening of the new Assembly, we hope our lawmakers do their best to pass urgent bills related to people’s livelihoods.

But the way they act is utterly disappointing. Rep. Jung Cheong-rae, chairman of the mighty Legislation and Judiciary Committee, ridiculed a two-term PPP lawmaker by asking his name when he found fault with the fiery chairman’s domineering ways of electing a senior committee member from the PPP. Rep. Jung even demanded the PPP lawmaker study the National Assembly Act harder. In reaction, the PPP lawmaker, a former prosecutor, said, “I did better than you at school.” Both lawmakers threatened to file a complaint with the Ethics Committee over the insults at one another. We hope they become decent human beings first before being legislators.

More baffling is the exchange of nasty words in the Science, ICT, Future Planning, Broadcasting and Communications Committee. After a DP lawmaker demanded that Rep. Kim Jang-kyom, a PPP lawmaker and former MBC president, be re-assigned to other committee, citing a conflict of interest from his legal battle with the public broadcaster, Rep. Kim enumerated all the criminal records, including drunk driving, of the committee’s DP members one by one. He even said a DP member is being investigated by the prosecution over his alleged election law violation.

Rep. Kim may regard the DP lawmaker’s demand for his relocation as being unfair. If so, he could just deny the suspicion based on the interpretation of the National Assembly Secretariat. We are dumbfounded at the representatives’ excessively emotional approach.

The hearing at the Health and Welfare Committee was no different. Rep. Kang Sun-woo, a DP member, denounced Korean Medical Association Chairman Lim Hyung-taek, a testifier, for calling her “a crazy woman” in the prior legislature. She went on to mention all the off-track remarks by Lim in the past. We wonder why we must see such substandard and irrelevant happenings in a hearing over how to resolve the ongoing medical crisis.

The effectiveness of the National Assembly is ranked at 34th among 35 OECD members. But our lawmakers’ salaries rank third when adjusted to national income. We must deeply reflect on whether we should give such hefty privileges to those who are experts in making a travesty of politics.