First week of parliamentary audit: policy scrutiny vanishes, leaving only vulgar remarks
The first week of the National Assembly's audit of the two-year-old Lee Jae-myung government wrapped up on the 9th, but the proceedings from the 6th through the 9th have been described as marred by vulgar remarks, shouting matches, and picket protests by lawmakers from both ruling and opposition parties. With provocative rhetoric taking precedence over policy scrutiny on the audit floor, one wonders what has happened over these two years.
The National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee was the fiercest battleground between the rival parties. At the Supreme Court audit on the 6th, the confrontation began when the Democratic Party and other liberal lawmakers demanded that Chief Justice Cho Hee-de be called as a witness, while the conservative People Power Party pushed back, raising concerns about undermining judicial independence. At the audit that day, People Power Party Rep. Kim Tae-kyu remarked, "Let's invent an Owl Rock truth," to which Cho Kuk Innovation Party Rep. Park Eun-jung retorted, "Try being a decent human being," and Democratic Party Rep. Kim Yong-min chimed in, "He's never once been one." Rep. Kim shot back, "You try becoming a decent human being" and "You've been scratched by Owl Rock." During the afternoon session, as Democratic Party Chairwoman Seo Young-gyo of the committee was conducting proceedings, People Power Party Rep. Park Hyung-soo protested, and epithets such as "mob thug" (from Seo) and "girl gangster" (from Park) were exchanged, resulting in Kim and Park being suspended from speaking.
On the 7th, audits of the Finance and Economy Committee and the Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee were briefly paralyzed by picket protests from People Power Party lawmakers. Party members attached pickets reading "Withdraw the Future Response Fund that ruins our future" to their laptops, and when Committee Chairwoman Cho Seung-rae's demand for their removal was ignored, the audit was delayed by about 30 minutes until the pickets were removed through negotiation between the parties' floor negotiators. At the agriculture committee, a Democratic Party demand to remove a picket reading "Drive out farmers and end up with solar power?" briefly suspended the meeting before it resumed after the picket was taken down.
That same day, at the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee audit, a clash erupted when People Power Party Rep. Park Chung-kwon, a North Korean defector, questioned reports alleging an attempt to entice defectors into repatriation to the North, and Unification Minister Chung Dong-young and Democratic Party lawmakers burst out laughing. When Rep. Park demanded, "Is this something to laugh about?" Democratic lawmakers responded, "It's something so unimaginable that the laughter came naturally" (Hong Ki-won) and "Bodily reactions are hard to control" (Jung Chung-rae), and the verbal spat escalated into a clash of insults and raised voices.
Shin Yul, a professor of political science and diplomacy at Myongji University, pointed out, "As more lawmakers in recent years have become conscious of YouTube 'Shorts,' the National Assembly audit seems to have increasingly degenerated into a stage for ever more provocative and aggressive remarks." Kim Kwan-ok, head of the Signal Politics Research Institute, said, "The audit is the opposition's time to check the government," adding, "Rather than remarks that inflame public sentiment, it would be in the opposition's own interest to scrutinize state affairs in depth with reason and logic."
