How a legislation glut can kill a government

Ha Hyun-ock
The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.

The law is mighty. A state governed by the Constitution falls under the rule of law. Once enacted, a law, however undesirable it may be, must be obeyed. As Socrates said, “We must obey the law of the state or persuade it as to the nature of justice; but we must never act in defiance of it.” Lawbreakers must face up to accountability and due punishment.

Since the law by nature serves to constrain, the enforcement or prohibition of a certain act can infringe on the basic rights of citizens. It is therefore important to go through thorough opinion-tapping procedures via public hearings and other means and carefully deliberate on the ramifications and possible side effects in the lawmaking process. The process serves as the Maginot Line to prevent hasty legislation.

But a guardrail ceases to exist in Korean politics. Debating and deliberating for legislation disappeared long ago. Instead, laws are churned out by the opposition-dominant machine. Laws are spilling over due to excessive lawmaking. Of course, laws are needed to reflect fast changes in society, but the abundance of laws in Korea is of a different nature. Laws are made not because of a call of the age, society or needs of the people, but to serve certain lawmakers or parties.

The Democratic Party (DP) rolls out bills at an astonishing pace. Its lawmakers — who defended people related to the Daejang-dong development scandal while DP leader Lee Jae-myung was Gyeonggi governor — have motioned a bill to revise the Criminal Procedure Act to mandate a judge to deny an arrest warrant for a person deemed to be unjustly “targeted” by the prosecution. The revisions also include controversial provisions aimed at punishing prosecutors or judges for “false accusation” or “distortion of the law” if they fabricated criminal charges. Since the definitions of “targeted investigation” and “legal distortion” are ambiguous concepts, the bills contain too many contentious issues.

A bill to “prevent the prosecution’s fabrication of charges” demands prosecutors to question suspects in detention facilities instead of their offices. Another bill bans the prosecution from disclosing suspected crimes in criminal cases. All these bills can only be suspected of aiming to defend the DP boss from his own judicial risks and intimidate the judiciary branch to leave him alone.

Bills are in excess because lawmakers are writing them up rather than attempting dialogue or discussion. After government officials didn’t show up at a standing committee meeting held by only DP members, the party motioned a bill enabling punishment on cabinet ministers or vice ministers for missing or leaving a standing committee session. A bill also called for the replacement of standing committee members should they boycott a session without proper reasons.

The excess of special bills also adds to the superfluity of bills. A special bill can be fast-tracked to deal with extraordinary cases and events, but they can also clash with existing law provisions and systems to undermine the security and predictability of the law order. However, in Korea, they serve as an easy tool to skirt accountability over social issues or win votes in constituencies.

The DP’s drastic turn to the strange “rule by law” means the party will use its majority power to arbitrarily enact and apply laws in their favor. The flooding of self-serving — and impulsive — laws hardens the lives of people. The laws allegedly aimed at protecting tenants — which were railroaded by the DP during the Moon Jae-in administration — ended up doing the opposite by spiking home and rent prices.

There should be laws that mandate a review of the ramifications of such biased laws or hold lawmakers accountable for their dubious legislation. But such laws will never be put to a vote in the National Assembly. The extremely partisan legislature miraculously becomes bipartisan on issues that directly restrict their power.