Launching the Civil Network for Political Reform (CNPR)

Launching the Civil Network for Political Reform (CNPR)

Hong, Seok-In(sihong@pspd.org)

Coordinator, Center for National Assembly Watch, PSPD

On January 17, 2003, thirteen civic social organizations formed the Civil Network for Political Reform (CNPR) and made public its launch. On February 17, for the first time since the establishment of constitutional government in Korea, politicians of both ruling and opposition parties, scholars, legal circles, and civic social organizations participated in the launch of CNPR. It is an auspicious sign of political reform.

In Korea, political reform has been an extremely difficult process. In fact, the people’s expectations and demand for reform have been routinely ignored by politicians. Political reform has been also delayed by the rigid and closed structure of the party, strong resistance from conservative politicians, and the political circle’s monopoly in setting the reform agenda. The old state of politics, replete with “migratory bird” politicians, confrontations and conflicts, inter- and intra-party factional strives, inefficiency, and “bombproof” politicians, thus remained unchanged.

But as witnessed in the 2002 presidential election, reform in all sectors of Korean society has become an important issue and people’s aspiration and expectation for political reform has been no exception. In compliance with people’s demand, politicians showed their will toward change by forming special committees for political reform and submitting innovative bills for party reform. They were positive moves, albeit prolonged. In view of this, civic groups should form a solidarity for political reform campaign, evaluating the actions and strategies of the Civil Solidarity for the 16th Presidential Election, its drive for anti-corruption and political reform while taking into account the new political circumstances. Moreover, since the lesson learned during the time was that the issue of political reform was not a matter limited to the interest of a party or politicians but of all the people, consensus was reached to launch an organization composed of politicians from both ruling and opposition parties and civic social organizations to reflect people’s will.

So, on January 14, 2003, civic social organizations such as the Green Korea United, Culture Solidarity, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, Korea Women’s Association United, Korea Women Link, Korean Federation for Environmental Movement, Citizens Movement for Environmental Justice, and Citizens Action Network formed an organization tentatively named Civil Solidarity for Political Reform and agreed to work out collaboration projects and campaigns for political reform.

The Civil Solidarity for Political Reform (CNPR) launched the collaborative campaign for political reform with several aims. First of all, CNPR is aware that discussions on reform inside political circles deteriorated to struggle for party leadership. Also, each party’s post-election pledges were at the risk of being repealed. Civil organizations judged it was high time to integrate people’s power through joint actions and develop a drive for political reform. Moreover, the Election Law should be revised so that the 2004 general election can be administered based on the party-list voting based on the proportional representation. Therefore it became urgent to bring about changes in the political system and party structure while drawing out citizens’ own reform plan. To meet these demands, an alliance of 13 civil organizations launched the Civil Network for Political Reform (CNPR) on January 17, 2003, embarking upon its nationwide campaign for political reform. The CNPR announced the background of its establishment as follows:

People’s demand for political reform has been made for a long time. Political reform is a solemn order of citizens to the political circle. People want to dismantle the old political system and open an era of new politics. The Civil Network for Political Reform (CNPR) believes that parties and politicians will perish if they fail to meet these demands of people.

Of course, there have been changes inside political circle. Each party poured out pledges for political reform and established its own special committee for political reform to make a self-reflective step toward political revolution. However, we have learned that substantial political changes cannot be made “within” political institutions only. It seems that the current drive for political reform will conclude without much impact.

We cannot leave the important task of political reform to political circles. All the citizens should participate in the reform program and bring about a fundamental change of Korean politics. Only the participation of people can bring about substantial changes in Korean politics, eradicate political corruption, and bring about dramatic reform in the election and parliament systems. And it is very urgent and important to set the reform agenda on the legislation table. For this purpose, the Civil Network for Political Reform (CNPR) has made some adjustments to the political reform agenda, which has been discussed within the civil organizations, and made suggestions to the political circle.

The focus of the political reform agenda proposed by CNPR is the institutionalization of reform in the election system, political fund, party structure, and parliament system via substantially enhancing people’s casual participation, democracy, openness, transparency, efficiency, and accountability in political processes. Reform agenda in each individual area are as follows.

The direction of party reform is to renovate the old party structure and give the party back to the people. Reform of the old party structure should bring about the operation of the party based on the authentic members. One of the main reasons for the delayed political reform is low possibility of intra-party reform due to the old party system. This results from the absence of authentic party members. Parties without authentic members and supporters should no longer be allowed to have a say in the political process. Furthermore, organization- and management-centered parties should be converted to ones with clear platforms and ideology. Reducing the current party headquarters, invigorating the party functions inside the parliament, and endeavoring into developing policies through party-run research institutes can help establish policy- and ideology-centered parties.

Enhancing democracy in political parties is another big mission. Political parties should be equipped with a solid democratic system in which all the decisions are made by party members and supporters. The decision-making and nominating authority should be given back to members and supporters of the party. Democratic elections of leaders and bottom-up nominations of candidates involving members and citizen supporters should be designated in the party constitution.

Innovative actions for party organizations such as reducing the party headquarters and restructuring the operation of district offices are also necessary. Policy research and development and opinion monitoring via online should be also encouraged while streamlining redundant bodies in the headquarters. In addition, district offices which have been reduced to election camps should be reformed. Mobilization-style election campaign is to be replaced by volunteers’ and supporters’ participation. Operating funds should now come from members and supporters. It is necessary to make public particulars for fund raising and run the party on a solid economic basis of membership fees and supporting funds. Quota for women’s participation in politics should be also enhanced.

Making institution that can reflect people’s opinions without any distortion is the central agenda of election reform. Securing people’s active participation is also crucial for realizing participatory democracy. To make this possible, it is urgent to introduce the party-list voting based on the proportional representation. It will secure greater likelihood of a majority rule and prevent so-called ‘dead votes’ as well as distribute seats to parties in proportion to people’s support.

Expanding the public management of elections is another area of reform. There is no reason to delay the ‘exclusive public election management,’ which will facilitate the voice of the people and shut the pipeline of black money. As we experienced during the 16th presidential election, the media and the Internet will be alternatives to money-smudged and crony election culture. Voluntary election campaigns, opinion gathering on the Internet, and campaign activities of civil organizations should be guaranteed by law and invigorated.

Election laws should be immediately revised. Act 24 of the Election Law states that the Election District Committee should submit finalized draft of constituency to Speaker of the National Assembly. The Constitutional Court judged that the current constituency system violates equal right and right to vote guaranteed by the Constitution. It also stated that the current proportional representation system based on majority-minority vote is in violation with the Constitution. These judgments loudly tell the importance of revising the election system and law. Besides, large-scale cutbacks on the money entrusted, freedom of election campaign by NGOs, allowance of teachers’ and civil officers’ political activity, and lowering the voting age to 18 are important reform agenda.

Political fund reform sets as its main agenda the enhancement of transparency of funds and the strengthening of punishment for related crimes. Political fund law has the purpose of precluding the flow of black money into the political circle and contributing to democratic politics by providing politicians with proper funds and making transparent their fundraising and expenditures. However, the current political fund law has very limited capability in securing transparency of political fund transactions. There’s no valid inspection and little auditing process for the influx of fund, which makes each party’s financial statements unreliable. To secure transparency, the use of credit cards and checks should be made mandatory in fundraising and expenditure. And each party is supposed to use only the bank account reported to the National Election Commission. Detailed information on revenues such as the sum of money, the date and time received, name, and address should be reported, too. Auditing should validate only the receipts designated by the Tax law. To enhance the auditing of each party, the National Election Commission should nominate CPAs and let them audit each party. Limited terms of public reading on auditing reports should be abolished, so that people’s right to know be faithfully met.

The government subsidy system should go through sweeping changes so that its usage be strictly limited and so it may help parties improve their constitution. Once public management of elections is broadly adopted, government subsidy for elections should be abolished. The criteria in allocating government subsidy should be also changed from whether one party has enough number of seats to establish a negotiation body to the number of ballots a party gained in an election so that people’s will may be reflected more appropriately. And a matching fund system which matches the sum of party membership fees and donation with the amount of government subsidy should be introduced to establish a party budget system based on the “more-people-pay-less-money” principle.

Reform of the National Assembly includes enhancement of professional policy development, transparency in law enactment, congress ethics, and assembly functions. One of the main reasons for the congress’s ill repute is lack of professionalism in policy development. This results not from individual incompetence but from inappropriate aid system of the assembly. Also, the parliament offices should be reformed in the direction of supporting professional political activities. To this effect, the parliament should be divided into two large departments-administrative bureau and legislation support bureau-so that it may have increased budget deliberation and legislative capability. Legislation support bureau is to enhance professionalism in legislation actions through staffing experts at each standing committee. The term of office of the estimate and settlement committee members should be prolonged to 2 years, which is usual for other committee members, so that they may have elevated professionalism and accountability. The transfer of the functions of the Bureau of Audit and Inspection should also be considered.

Making public major sessions and meetings of the National Assembly through the parliament broadcasting system will be a valuable move to enhance transparency of the legislation process. Electronic vote-counting system should be made mandatory in the plenary session. Each standing committee should make public its proceedings and ballot results. Each subcommittee should keep and open its minutes so that people’s right to know should be satisfied and transparency of legislation process reinforced.

Concurrent offices of a lawmaker should be banned in principle. Criteria should be established, in which revenues earned outside the parliament should be limited. Also, a bill that precludes a person from a specific standing committee should be stipulated so that he or she, who has been engaged in the field directly related with the committee, may not exercise influence for one’s own interest.

A public hearing should expand its range to cabinet members and improve its operation procedure to strengthen parliamentary functions and streamline its structure. A regular parliamentary inspection system should be introduced to settle the problems of government burden and unfruitful inspection. It is also necessary to give the Special Committee for Parliamentary Ethics authority to enforce inspections on external persons and strengthen the authority of the Steering Committee to adjust agenda of the parliamentary sessions.

Of course, establishing new reform agenda is important. However, as far as the Civil Network for Political Reform (CNPR) is concerned, it is far more important and urgent to institutionalize these agenda.

Even though efforts of political circles are required in the political reform process, they are not sufficient: participation and agreement of people are the prerequisites for success. Therefore, what is needed is the consensus of people and the formation of a national organization for discussing alternatives for political reform and encouraging political circles to implement them.

The Civil Network for Political Reform, comprising politicians of both ruling and opposition party, scholars, legal circles, and civic social organizations, formed a national organization to discuss alternatives for political reform and draw a comprehensive blueprint to inspire the beginning of a new Korean politics. It also suggested the establishment of the National Committee for Political Reform (NCPR) to the effect that the organization will lead a participatory reform activities to bring legal agreement of both ruling and opposition party. Political circles accepted the proposal of NCPR and agreed upon the launch of the nationwide political reform organization in which each politician participates as an individual. For the first time in Korean constitutional history, therefore, 178 persons from different sectors of society launched NCPR.

The direction of the campaign for political reform now should concentrate on redrawing the people’s attention to the issue, which has been swept away from public attention due to the North Korean nuclear issue and the US attack of Iraq. The NCPR plans to exert itself to the enactment of political reform bills and prepare for the 2004 general election by building a nationwide civil network during the latter half of this year. Demand for political reform is very high, and the importance of civil network for political reform is greater than ever.