July 15 Legislative Report: Rep. Lee Won-hyung Pushes for Recognition of Childcare Hours as Attendance and Introduction of Deposit Guarantee Insurance for Commercial Tenants

Legislative Initiatives to Counter Low Birth Rates and Protect Commercial Tenants

Recently, the National Assembly saw the introduction of an amendment to the Early Childhood Education Act aimed at addressing the low birth rate crisis by recognizing time spent on childcare as official work attendance. Proposed by Democratic Party Rep. Lee Won-hyung, the bill aims to establish an institutional framework to alleviate the practical burdens on parents juggling work and child-rearing. The existing legal framework lacked clear grounds for securing time essential for childcare, limiting the ability to prevent actual exits from the labor market. This revision seeks to achieve the policy goal of maintaining the economically active population while guaranteeing children’s rights by officially recognizing childcare time as attendance.

The issue of skyrocketing rent threatening the livelihood of small business owners and the self-employed is also subject to legislative solutions. Rep. Lee has introduced an amendment to the Commercial Building Lease Protection Act to push for a system allowing tenants to purchase guarantee insurance for a portion of their lease deposits. Incidents where tenants fail to recover large deposits due to unforeseen risks, such as landlord bankruptcy, have persisted. This measure stems from the judgment that there is an urgent need to build a safety net that secures property rights for commercial tenants and cushions economic shocks.

Parliamentary Activities and Stalemate in Second Half Negotiations

Despite the active legislative proposals by individual lawmakers, the macro-level landscape of the National Assembly remains in a state of deep deadlock. Negotiating teams from the ruling and opposition parties met to complete the formation of the National Assembly for the second half of the term, but talks collapsed as they failed to narrow sharp differences regarding the method of recommending a special counsel and the allocation of standing committees. The conflict between parties is intensifying, with spokespeople such as Kim Seong-yong of the Rebuilding Korea Party and Lee Won-hyung conveying their respective party’s official stances and continuing political rhetoric. Rep. Kim Seong-yong, a member of the Rebuilding Korea Party serving on the Budget and Accounts Committee and the Education Committee, recently demonstrated political independence by rejecting a proposal for a partial group vote by the opposition and casting a favorable vote during the confirmation process for the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court.

Critics argue that the legislative body’s essential deliberative function is being significantly undermined in this climate of confrontation. According to data obtained by the office of People Power Party Rep. Park Jun-tae from the National Assembly Secretariat, a staggering 330 bills were passed by standing committees during the first half of the 22nd National Assembly without observing the statutory deliberation period required by the National Assembly Act. While current laws mandate procedures such as comparing new and old clauses to review constitutionality and gather public opinion, resolutions ignoring these requirements are rampant. With the bill passage rate for the first half of the Assembly hitting a record low of 7.7%, the ruling party’s “fast-track” legislation, driven by its majority of seats rather than in-depth discussion, is creating side effects.

Splits within the party are also emerging around single controversial bills. During a plenary vote in June, the Partial Amendment to the Korea Rural Community Corporation and Farmland Management Fund Act saw 10 PPP lawmakers break party lines to vote against it. Similarly, in the vote on the Partial Amendment to the Framework Act on Resource Circulation, eight PPP lawmakers, including Lee Cheol-kyu, Kim Eun-hye, and Yoo Sang-beom, joined the opposition. It appears that the forced passage of bills for political offensives is only amplifying policy-driven internal conflict within the ruling party.

Legislative Delays and the Ripple Effects of Contested Policies

Hasty legislation devoid of deliberation and political confrontation are delaying the substantive processing of key economic bills, causing negative ripple effects across the industry. The amendment to the Urban and Residential Environment Improvement Act, currently pending in the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, seeks to empower the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to designate urban renewal areas to resolve bottlenecks at local government levels. However, as a national petition opposing related laws, including the Real Estate Transaction Reporting Act, garnered over 50,000 signatures—meeting the threshold for referral to the relevant committee—calls for the suspension and withdrawal of the bill are intensifying. Wide-area local governments are pushing back, arguing there is insufficient justification for the concentration of authority, leading to sharp conflicts of interest.

Rep. Lee Jong-bae’s Partial Amendment to the Small Business Protection and Support Act, aimed at proactively rescuing small merchants facing bankruptcy, has also failed to pass the National Assembly threshold despite establishing grounds for active business diagnostics by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. While building an early detection system is essential to prevent losses for self-employed people hit hard by the economic downturn, the urgency of the situation is being overshadowed by political ideological confrontation, resulting in structural legislative delays.

Institutional Easing and Legislative Outlook

Amidst this political stagnation, follow-up measures to enhance industrial competitiveness are proceeding independently within the executive branch. The Ministry of Science and ICT passed the revision of the Enforcement Decree of the AI Framework Bill at a State Council meeting, guiding the prioritization of AI in public procurement systems. There is a continuing trend of preemptive policy execution utilizing national bonds. In the education sector, Rebuilding Korea Party Rep. Kim Byeong-cheol introduced the Partial Amendment to the Higher Education Act to ease regulations on university establishment and operation, and is focusing efforts on improving the environment for industrial workforce supply, such as by raising noise reduction measures around specialized science and technology high schools during parliamentary audits.

Moving forward, the National Assembly faces the task of completing its constitutional duty of forming the Assembly for the second half of the year and swiftly resolving the backlog of pending economic and livelihood bills. If normal legislative procedures, which respect deliberation periods and the review process, are not restored, it will be impossible to ensure the effectiveness of bills and maintain policy consistency. The ruling and opposition parties stand at a critical juncture where they must refrain from political confrontation and foster a practical legislative environment to ensure that field-oriented livelihood bills, such as Rep. Lee Won-hyung’s childcare attendance recognition system and deposit guarantee insurance system, can be institutionalized through substantive parliamentary discussion.