Shameless act

The National Assembly once again played a “bulletproof” role for its two members suspected of corruption by voting down motions for their arrest in a plenary session Monday.

The prosecution requested arrest warrants for Rep. Hong Moon-jong for alleged bribery and embezzlement and Rep. Yeom Dong-yeol for alleged involvement in Kangwon Land’s hiring irregularities. The two are from the main opposition Liberty Korea Party.

It is hard to find similar cases in the private sector outside the legislature. The two lawmakers were the 15th and 16th to avoid arrest despite the criminal charges filed against them. That’s old-fashioned foul play — lawmaker’s immunity from arrest during an Assembly session.

The privilege has been regarded as a deep-rooted evil because it has been abused so many times, even if it must be restrictively allowed for legislative activity for the people. It is still vivid in the memory of the peo- ple that lawmakers, irrespective of their political affiliations, “vowed” to give up the privilege whenever a New Assembly was inaugurated.

The people had every reason to believe the lawmakers’ promises since the floor leaders of the three negotiating groups got together with the speaker last June 30 to agree on the abolition of the privilege. But lawmakers snubbed the agreement by rejecting the arrest motion.

In particular, the LKP came up with new plans for legislative reform, including the repeal of the privilege in March. But what they did this time proved they deceived the people.

Even if the ruling Democratic Party of Korea decided to pass the motion in a caucus before the voting, at least 20 lawmakers of the party voted against the arrest of their “opposition” colleagues. Their signature slogan for the “annihilation of the deep-rooted evils of the past” is simply vacuous, if this kind of activity continues to take place.