North Korean students perform during the country's famed Arirang Mass Games at the May Day stadium in central Pyongyang October 10, 2005. The Arirang Mass Games involved 100,000 performers, including 20,000 students who organised a massive mosaic by turning pages of books that composed the back-cloth. Picture taken October 10, 2005. REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won



Parliamentary inspection needs improvement.

The parliamentary inspection of the administration by the 17th National Assembly was closed yesterday after 20 days. This time, the government party and the opposition tried to do the inspection better than last year. It is estimated that they produced some fruitful results. They proposed the agendas, which are quite related to life of the people, and framed policies. Internet forged civil affairs documents and lead-poisoned kimchi imported from China were very good topics for the people to know about. They tried to get out of the old state of affairs, such as scandal disclosure for its own interest, and political striving.

However, they still are not up to the expectation and requirement of the people. They need to improve their "quality parliamentary inspection". They showed some of the old repeated problems of parliamentary inspections. Some members of the parliament did not prepare well for the inspection, but just asked some pretentious questions or summoned a witness to be immune from punishment, or showed an easy-going attitude toward the inspected governmental offices. It is said that inspectors drank with inspected officials. All those things should be corrected. Especially, they should abolish intentional attacks against big companies, and populism: political activity or notions that are thought to reflect the opinions and interests of ordinary people.

The inspection is supposed to probe problems of the policy enforcement process and suggest alternative plans. To keep the inspection of the governmental offices on the right tract, some fundamental improvement of the inspection should be made.

It is very fortunate for South Korea that the ruling party and the opposition party share their opinions about the problems. They discussed a joint organization of both parties for the governmental inspection, as well as various plans for improvement. These would include such things as a year-round inspection system on each standing committee, extension of the inspection period, even stronger punishment on officials who neglect to submit reports, and establishment of an ex post facto inspection system. All of these suggestions have already been made by word of mouth, whenever they got a scolding on an insufficient inspection in the past. They shouldn't wrap up the proposals orally, but have a strong willingness to put them into practice. They should actualize some improvement of the parliamentary inspection of the administration as long as they have confirmed the possibility of policy inspection for the people.
/ 입력시간: 2005. 10.13. 10:15