National Assembly speaker Chung Ui-hwa has come up with a proposal to amend the controversial law on parliamentary operation, which is widely regarded as the main culprit for the frequent parliamentary deadlocks.

Under the current law, a bill can be put to vote in a plenary session of the National Assembly only after having been approved by three-fifths of the legislators on the relevant standing committee.

The law also strictly restricts the power of the Assembly speaker to refer a bill directly to a vote without first going through deliberation at the committee level.

The speaker can exercise such an authority only in times of a natural disaster, a national emergency, or when there is an agreement among the ruling and opposition parties and the speaker.

This supermajority rule was designed to protect the rights of the minority, but the main opposition party has frequently abused it, putting the Assembly into a vegetative state. 

Recently, the ruling Saenuri Party submitted a bill to amend the dysfunctional law. It proposes to empower the speaker to take a legislative bill directly to a vote when the majority of incumbent legislators approve it.

But the party could not bring the bill to a plenary session on its own. So it used an expedient method and pressured Chung to refer the bill to a vote on the Assembly floor.

Chung resisted the pressure from the ruling party because he could not agree to its idea. He noted that if the speaker’s power were expanded to address the problems posed by the supermajority rule, it could also be abused. 

Then he presented a compromise. While leaving the clause that restricts the speaker’s authority intact, he proposed to amend the rule on fast-track legislation.

The current law allows the speaker to designate an important agenda for expeditious processing, if at least three-fifths of all incumbent lawmakers approve it. Chung proposed to ease the supermajority requirement to a simple majority vote.

At the same time, he proposed to shorten the time required to process a fast-track agenda. Under the current law, it takes at least 330 days -- too much time for expeditious processing. Chung suggested it be reduced to a maximum of 75 days.

He noted that there should be a mechanism that would allow important issues, such as those that pose a serious threat to public security or the national economy, to be designated as fast-track agenda and be processed expeditiously.

Chung’s proposal makes sense. The two parties need to discuss it seriously as a way to address the drawbacks of the current National Assembly Act.