hankyoreh

July 23.

It was revealed Thursday that assertions made by the National Assembly’s Government Administration Committee are not true. The committee is claiming that the re-vote on the Broadcasting Law revision bill that took place on July 22 after it failed to meet the quorum is a legal and customary practice.

It has also been confirmed that there were some lawmakers who engaged in proxy voting during the railroading of the three media-related bills on Wednesday.

The Government Administration Committee said in its press release, “The vote on revision of Broadcasting Law took was a miscarriage because the 145 votes did not meet the number required to reach quorum.” It also said, “Not only did the bill not pass, but it was not rejected, and the presentation of the bill for revote followed customary practice.” The committee provided various examples as precedents, including the case of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act revision (2001), and the Resolution to urge North Korea to improve its human rights record (2003).

However, in examinations of the Assembly record, there are some differences from those cases and the current case. The revision of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act was re-voted on during the session following the one where the number of votes, 119, failed to meet the quorum requirement of 137. The Resolution to urge North Korea to improve its human rights record also was revoted on the day after it failed to reach quorum. Moreover, lawyers are saying that in both of those instances, a conclusion to voting on the bill had not been declared.

MINBYUN-the Lawyers for a Democratic Society offered a written opinion on July 23 saying, “It is clear the bill was rejected because there were announcements of starting the vote and concluding it.”

MINBYUN also says, “The rejected bill cannot be voted on again in the same session, and therefore the second round of voting on the Broadcasting Law revision bill is invalid.”

The 93 lawmakers from the Democratic Party, Democratic Labor Party and Creative Korea Party have filed a petition with the Constitutional Court for an injunction against the Broadcasting Law revision.

Meanwhile, Kang Bong-kyun, a lawmaker of the Democratic Party, said in a telephone interview, “GNP Lawmaker Park Sang-eun pushed the ‘affirmative’ button on my desk in order to register my vote.” He added, “Park pushed the cancel button in order to restore the blank ballot on my screen after I told him, ‘You have done something wrong and I will make this an issue,’ and then he voted ‘present.’”

Ha tae-yeol, a law professor at Dong-A University said, “The proxy vote should not be permitted, and since the right to vote is conferred to the lawmakers by the citizens, no one else can exercise the right by proxy.”

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