National Assembly Passes 63 Ruling Party-Led Bills at Plenary Session... People Power Party Boycotts

On February 12, the National Assembly, led by the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, held a plenary session and passed non-controversial bills. However, the main opposition People Power Party boycotted the session, claiming that the ruling party had unilaterally pushed through the Constitutional Complaint Act and other bills at the Legislation and Judiciary Committee the previous day, leaving the plenary session to proceed in a "half-empty" state.

Yonhap News Agency

At the plenary session on the afternoon of the same day, the National Assembly passed 63 bills, including an amendment to the Act on Gender Equality in Employment and Support for Work-Family Reconciliation. The amendment to the Gender Equality in Employment Act adopted that day allows fathers to take paternity leave when their spouse is pregnant, not only after childbirth.

Under the current law, when a spouse gives birth, the husband is granted 20 days of paid leave. The amendment allows this leave to be taken starting from 50 days before the expected date of childbirth. In addition, it stipulates that in cases of miscarriage or stillbirth, the husband will be granted five days of leave, three of which will be paid.

The National Assembly also passed an amendment to the Personal Information Protection Act that day. This amendment requires business operators, once they become aware of a potential personal information leak or similar risk, to notify data subjects with information necessary to minimize any damage. It also allows the imposition of fines of up to 10% of total sales in cases of serious personal information leaks and similar incidents.

Initially, the ruling and opposition parties had agreed to process 81 bills at the plenary session that day. However, after the People Power Party declared a boycott of the plenary session, citing the Constitutional Complaint Act and other bills passed at the Legislation and Judiciary Committee the previous day, only 63 bills were approved. A luncheon meeting that had been scheduled for the same day between the president and the leaders of the ruling and opposition parties was also canceled as a result.

People Power Party leader Jang Donghyuk held a meeting in the morning and said, "Whenever a meeting with the president is scheduled, arbitrary and outrageous actions such as unilaterally pushing ahead with legislation have been repeated just before or just after it. When this repeats year after year, it becomes inevitable," adding, "If the presidential office was unaware of this in advance, it means the ruling party is putting the president in a difficult position; if it went ahead despite knowing, it means there is no intention to pursue cooperative governance."

He specifically criticized the Democratic Party, saying, "On critical matters such as legislation, the president, the ruling party, and the National Assembly must engage in sufficient consultations," and added, "Speaking of cooperative governance while continuing such unilateral handling is inconsistent and makes no sense."

The Democratic Party also pushed back. Floor leader Han Byungdo issued a statement immediately after the plenary session, saying, "It is deeply regrettable that the agreement itself was not honored even before the ink on the (ruling-opposition) agreement had dried," and added, "The Democratic Party will no longer tolerate the People Power Party's behavior of staging a legislative hostage drama by holding people's livelihoods hostage."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.