Few would disagree that politics is one of the least trusted or respected professions in Korea. The prevailing public view is that many politicians are consumed by a desire for power and money, lack ethical integrity and abuse their power and privileges.

So much so that the Korean word for being “political” has such negative connotations as calculating, opportunistic, selfish, treacherous and overly ambitious.

By any measure, members of the National Assembly top the list of politicians in terms of public distrust. Well aware of this negative public view, they sometimes come up with reform proposals, including those for curtailing their own power and privilege.

Not surprisingly, many of these proposals only end up in talk. One prime example is the proposal to introduce a recall system for Assembly members.

Since lawmakers are the only officials elected by a direct popular vote who are not subject to a recall referendum, there have been calls ― not only from the public but also lawmakers themselves ― to introduce the system.

Most recently, a group of 11 first-time lawmakers from the main opposition party authored a bill in 2012 to revise the National Assembly Act to introduce a recall system.

Like many other similar attempts at cutting lawmakers’ privileges, this too fizzled out, as their senior colleagues both from the ruling and opposition camps shunned it.

Then former Gyeonggi Gov. Kim Moo-soo, who now heads the ruling party’s political reform committee, said last week that his committee would push for recall referendums for National Assembly members.

As Kim mentioned, it is self-contradictory that lawmakers who made laws that allow for the impeachment of the president and recalls of governors and mayors, as well as members of local councils, are exempted from the mechanism by which holders of elected office can be kept in check by their constituents.

Moreover, the Assembly members are already guarded by excessive privileges ― such as immunity from detention while the parliament is in session, even if they are charged with crimes.

The public has every right to cut back on these privileges, which are given in the name of representative democracy, but abused to protect the interests of lawmakers. A recent survey by the Munhwa Ilbo newspaper found that as many as 90.4 percent of Koreans want to institute a recall system for lawmakers.

That 74 percent of the respondents in the same opinion poll even wanted Korea to have a system to dissolve the National Assembly reflects people’s high-running distrust of the political community.

Granting the president the right to dissolve the legislature, which is common in a parliamentary system of government, requires an amendment of the Constitution, while recalls of lawmakers can be instituted only by a revision to the National Assembly Act.

So there is no reason for the major parties to not set out on discussions immediately to carry out what 90 percent of their constituents want them to do.

Allowing voters to remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended will raise the standard of representative democracy in the country and help weed out unethical, incompetent and unqualified members of the legislature.