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Lawmakers must return to politics of dialogue, compromise
The National Assembly never fails to disappoint the public by persistently neglecting its duty of working for the foremost goal of bettering people's livelihoods.
The members of parliament, irrespective of their political affiliation, engage only in dog-eat-dog partisan strife, thereby paralyzing operations at the Assembly.
Already they have wasted a week without making any progress in their legislative work since the opening of the one-month extraordinary Assembly session on April 6. The waste is due to the all-or-nothing tactics of both the ruling and opposition parties over pending issues.
Just one year is left until the next general election slated for April 2020. This means the incumbent lawmakers have only a year to serve out their four-year term. But what they have been doing since their election three years ago is certainly to earn them the disgraceful title of being members of the worst-ever National Assembly.
There are so many pending issues to be dealt with urgently at the ongoing special session, such as the revision of the Labor Standard Act to expand flexible working hours following the shortened 52-hour workweek. Lawmakers also need to deliberate on bills designed to change how to set the minimum wage, support taxi operators and give firefighters the status of civil servants belonging to the state, not local administration.
Moreover, legislators of the rival parties need to narrow their differences to work out an electoral reform bill. They must also work on government-initiated bills to amend kindergarten-related laws to prevent accounting fraud.
There is a saying that lawmakers start working for re-election from the very day they are elected. Yet they have still one more year to work. As their title means, their basic duty is to make laws, not to break them. They have to carry out their duties faithfully to serve the people and the nation.
Legislators must act swiftly to pass bills related to people's livelihood. The lawmakers should not delay deliberation of this year's first supplementary budget bill to help boost the economy. The people hate to see lawmakers devoting themselves to partisan feuds. What they want to see is a return to the politics of dialogue and compromise.
