[Actually] Was the National Assembly's 'opening closure' unusually long this time?

The 'one composition' negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties, which had been delayed for over a month, were dramatically concluded yesterday.

At the plenary session attended by both opposition and opposition parties, Rep. Kim Jin-pyo from the Democratic Party of Korea was officially elected as the Speaker of the National Assembly.

It has been 36 days since the National Assembly went into a vacuum due to difficulties in negotiations.

In addition to the election of the National Assembly Speaker, the ruling and opposition parties agreed to continue negotiations for the election of a standing chairperson, including the Judiciary Chairperson, as soon as possible.

In fact, if you look at the past cases of the National Assembly, negotiations to form a circle have always been long and fierce.

There have always been reports of criticism that the National Assembly is not working because of negotiations on the composition of the circle.

If you're going to fight like this, you've even been told to return your taxes.

In fact, it is a sensitive issue for lawmakers, but it may not be very important from the point of view of the public as it is like a game of 'sharing seats', in simple terms, who will chair the National Assembly and who will chair the standing committee.

The SBS Fact-Eun Team compared and analyzed how long the National Assembly work vacancy was due to the chicken game between the ruling and opposition parties, as the composition of the original structure in the second half of the 21st National Assembly was dramatically concluded.

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After democratization, how long did it take to negotiate the original composition?

Negotiations on the composition of the circle are usually divided into the first half of the National Assembly and the second half of the National Assembly.

Since the term of office for members of the National Assembly is four years, it means that seats are redistributed every two years.

Since the general election is held in April and the term of the National Assembly begins on May 30, I calculated the time from then until the Speaker and the Standing Chair are officially elected.

All seat selections are based on the closing date.

You can check it at the National Assembly Minutes System (https://likms.assembly.go.kr/record).

Of course, the standard is from the 13th National Assembly in 1988, after democratization.

From the 13th National Assembly to the present 21st National Assembly, there were 18 rounds of negotiations on the composition of the circle in a total of 9 National Assembly sessions.

The time taken to negotiate is summarized in a table.

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The second half of the 21st National Assembly, that is, the conclusion of this round of negotiations, is still in the plenary election process, so I used the expression 'minimum' as of today.

I also ranked them based on the time taken.

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If you look straight ahead, in 1992, negotiations for the first half of the 14th National Assembly took the longest at 125 days.

Of course, because of the opposition.

There was a big difference between the ruling and opposition parties over when to hold the first local elections.

At that time, the opposition parties, the Democratic Party and the Unification National Party, called for implementation within the year, while the ruling Democratic Party of Korea called for an absolute impossibility.

In the end, negotiations on the original composition, which started in early June, continued until October.

The first local elections were held in 1995, three years later by agreement of the ruling and opposition parties.

Then in 2008, negotiations to form the first half of the 18th National Assembly took 88 days.

At this time, a candlelight vigil against the import of US beef was sweeping the political arena.

On May 30, 2008, the first day of his tenure, the three opposition parties held a rally condemning the Lee Myung-bak administration's announcement of the beef minister's notice by refusing to attend the National Assembly.

The three opposition parties announced at this meeting that they would postpone the opening of the National Assembly indefinitely until then-President Lee Myung-bak announces renegotiation of beef.

The round-making negotiations took 88 days.

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On May 30, 2008, on the opening day of the 18th National Assembly, the '3rd Opposition Resolution Conference to condemn the enforcement of the minister's notice and urge the renegotiation of beef'.

It was held in front of the National Assembly building with lawmakers and officials from the United Democratic Party, the Liberal and Advanced Party, and the Democratic Labor Party.

The average time taken for 18 rounds of round-up negotiations was calculated to be 41.7 days.

Considering that the 21st National Assembly took 47 days for the first half of the negotiations and 'at least 37 days' for the second half of the negotiations, it cannot be said that it took that long compared to other times.

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Should it be recalculated based on 'consensus processing'?

However, the negotiations for the first half of the 21st National Assembly in 2020 have room to be interpreted differently.

The original composition was handled by the opposition parties, but the differences between them were not resolved, so the ruling Democratic Party of Korea 'processed it alone'.

After a fight without concessions over the positions of the Legislative and Judiciary Chairperson and the Judiciary Chairperson, I had to deal with it alone.

While the power of the people boycotted, the National Assembly Presidency and the Standing Chair were elected, but the political situation rapidly froze afterwards.

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In the plenary session of the National Assembly on June 29, 2020, lawmakers such as the Democratic Party, Justice Party, and the then Open Democratic Party are preparing for the election of the standing chairperson while the Future United Party was absent.

And it was only on August 31, 2021, the following year, that the standing chairperson was divided by agreement of the ruling and opposition parties.

It has been one year and three months since the opening of the 21st National Assembly.

The media described this as 'normalization of the original composition'.

In the end, based on 'consensus processing' rather than 'independent processing', it was calculated as 452 days, the longest in history.

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Of course, the National Assembly did not stop during the period of 452 days, but there were also criticisms that it was left as a stigma in the history of the National Assembly in that it broke the 'tradition of consensus' in the negotiation of the original structure after democratization.

Negotiations for the formation of the second half are not yet over.

A long process remains.

This is because the 'conditional' normalization of the National Assembly was left untouched, as core issues such as the distribution of the chairperson of the Judiciary Committee and the standing committee members and the formation of the Special Committee on Judicial Reform were left untouched.

If you can't agree on this, you can retreat back to the origin.

Compared to the previous National Assembly, there is room for entry into the top position in terms of the period required for the original composition negotiations.

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History of the composition of the National Assembly Speaker and Judiciary Chairperson

Again, over the seat of the Judiciary Chairperson, there is an aspect that has been delayed as the ruling party fights more than the opposition party has.

Who is responsible for the chairperson of the judiciary is still a key issue.

Taking a closer look, I summarized how the National Assembly divided the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairman of the Judiciary in the past.

First, let's take a brief look at why the opposition parties are obsessed with the Judiciary Chairperson.

The Judiciary Committee is playing the role of carefully examining whether there are any erroneous phrases before submitting a bill that has passed other standing committees to the plenary session.

This is called 'system and self-examination'.

In other words, all bills go through the Judiciary, and if the discussion is blocked in the Judiciary, the bill cannot be passed.

In principle, the Judiciary Chairperson, who heads the Judiciary Committee, has the power to decide whether or not to bring a bill to the meeting.

It is such an important place.

Of course, the Speaker of the National Assembly is the head of the legislative branch, who has the power to put the bill in the plenary session, which is the final gateway to the passage of the bill.

Both the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairman of the Judiciary are the 'gatekeepers' of the passage of the bill.

For this reason, it is necessary to analyze who took the seat of the National Assembly Speaker along with the Judiciary Chairperson.

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Until the first half of the 15th National Assembly, the Speaker of the National Assembly and the chairman of the Judiciary were the ruling party and the first party.

It is mainly the current People's Power series.

In 1998, when the Kim Dae-jung administration took office, the political landscape changed, and the 'coalition ruling party' structure was created by joining forces with the then ruling National Assembly and the third party, the Liberal Democratic Alliance (Liberal Democratic Alliance).

This is the Kim Dae-jung + Kim Jong-pil (DJP) alliance.

Former lawmaker Park Jun-gyu, who was elected as the Speaker of the National Assembly in the latter half of the 15th National Assembly, was a member of the Liberal Democratic Alliance at the time, but was elected as the Speaker of the National Assembly in cooperation with the ruling party.

In the 17th National Assembly, which opened in 2004, there has been a tradition that the ruling and opposition parties take the chairperson of the Judiciary and the Speaker of the National Assembly one by one.

The 'distribution of checks' became possible by dividing the gatekeeping positions of bill processing.

However, in the first half of the 21st National Assembly negotiations, the ruling party took charge of both, and it can be interpreted that the customs of 16 years have changed again.

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Rep. Kim Jin-pyo of the Democratic Party of Korea, who was elected as the speaker of the second half of the 21st National Assembly.

Once the current opposition party, the Democratic Party, has taken the seat of the National Assembly Speaker, it is expected that the power of the people will take the Judiciary Chairman, but the situation seems to have to be watched a little more.

As mentioned earlier, this is because it is linked to other issues, such as the issue of the special committee on private affairs.

This is not the end.

Conflicts over the National Assembly personnel hearings are also a variable.

When the new National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo suggested, "Let's quickly form a special committee for personnel hearings and start verifying," Kwon Seong-dong, floor leader of People's Power, responded, "We can elect a standing chairperson and hold a hearing, but we are not cooperating."

There are so many complicated and intertwined issues.

If you want this, you have to give it up. It is politics, and then lying down if you make a mistake is also politics, and it is also politics to shake hands and get to know the world as if it was like that, so it is not easy to predict.

However, from the point of view of the people, the problem would be that this kind of sharing game doesn't really affect people's livelihood.