[Report on Progression] Progressions to Submitting the Ordinance Amendment on Seoul Square by the Initiative.

Progressions of Submitting the Ordinance Amendment on Seoul Square by the Initiative.


○ May 23 (Sat) The police closed Seoul Square by surrounding around with buses which carries police force
▶ The police prohibited citizens from entering Seoul Square and even blocked passersby from going through paths around the square for about fifteen days from the day former President Roh Moo-hyun died except for the day of funeral of the President Roh.

○ June 8 (Mon) NGOs and the four opposition parties started the campaign to give back Seoul Square to citizens
▶ The campaign involves activities such as:
– Promoting the Ordinance Amendments regarding Seoul Square by the initiative.
– Filing a suit against Seoul City for damages over the police obstruction of proceeding civil memorial services for former President Roh,
– Filing a constitutional appeal and an injunction against blocking Seoul Square by the police.
– Holding a press conference and one-man demonstrations.
– Opening a website for promoting the campaign.

○ June 10 (Wed) Started to promote the ordinance amendments regarding on Seoul Square
▶ PSPD Secretary-General, Kim Min-young as a representative submitted 「the ordinance amendments on using and maintaining Seoul Square」to Seoul City.

○ June 19 (Fri) Seoul City announced to the public that the ordinance amendments on Seoul Square was submitted.
▶ Seoul City posted personal profile of the representative and the purpose of claims on 「the ordinance amendments on using and maintaining Seoul Square」On the City Hall website.

○ June 24 (Wed) PSPD created a campaign team to start gathering signatures of citizens whoheld a press conference.
▶ PSPD opened the website(www.openseoul.org) for promoting the ordinance amendments. The website includes introductions to the ordinance amendments and provides the public with related information and news articles. Also PSPD started to advertise at the website to recruit volunteers who can take  on the duties of gathering citizens’ signatures.

○ July 14 (Wed) Seoul City issued ‘Signature Request Entrust Reporting Card’ and we held the first orientation for the mandatory members
▶ Seoul City issued ‘Signature Request Entrust Reporting Card’ to 1,556 of the 1,686 applicants for the mandatory minimum excluding 130 applicants who omitted their signatures on the application form, filled out the application form incorrectly  or filled out duplicate forms and young adults aged under nineteen.
▶ Preparations to start a signature seeking campaign were all set up.

○ December 19 (Sat)The signature gathering campaign collected about ninety thousand citizens’ signatures
▶ About ten thousand citizens signed by mail, visited our office and at the campaign stands around subway stations on February 19.

○ December 21 (Mon) ~ 24 (Thu) counting and arranging the citizens’ signatures
▶ Even after the end of the signature gathering campaign, we received about two thousand signatures each day from Feb 21 to 24 by mail  and in person .
▶ PSPD completed the counting and arranging about a hundred thousand of the valid signed papers in three days with the help of volunteers, interns, members of PSPD, members of ‘People Finding Back Seoul Square’ and other citizens.

○ 2009 December 29 (Tue) PSPD submitted 102,471 citizens’ signatures to Seoul City. (Succeed in initiative)
▶ numbers of claimant distributed by autonomous region.

Name of the autonomous region		Name of the autonomous region		Name of the autonomous region
Gangnam-gu	3,250	Dobong-gu	3,432	Songpa-gu	5,855
Gangdong-gu	4,734	Dongdaemun-gu	3,227	Yangchun-gu	5,441
Gangbuk-gu	4,289	Dongjak-gu	3,134	Youngdeungpo	3,959
Gangseo-gu	5,323	Mapo	6,740	Yongsan-gu	2,227
Kwanak-gu	5,789	Seodaemun-gu	4,937	Eunpyong-gu	4,656
Gwangjin-gu	3,317	Seocho-gu	2,520	Jongro-gu	3,228
Guro-gu	3,058	Sungdong-gu	3,025	Jung-gu	1,279
Geumchun-gu	2,978	Seongbuk	6,043	Jungrang-gu	3,784
Nowon-gu	6,516			Total number	102,741

○ 2010 January 25 Seoul City accepted the ordinance amendment
▶ Seoul City confirmed 85,072 signatures in valid and accepted the ordinance amendment requested by the citizens with signatures.

○ 2010 March 11 Seoul City sent the bill to Seoul Metropolitan Council
▶ Seoul City sent the bill to Seoul Metropolitan Council.

○ 2010 March 11 Take yes or no surveys to the members of the Council.
▶ We had a presentation of introductions to the  ordinance amendment and took yes or no surveys to the members of the Council.

○ 2010 March 18 Members of ‘People for finding Seoul Square Back’ had a general meeting for discuss the next steps to make the bill in valid
▶ The meeting decided to organize public interest lobbyists and planed actions for make the ordinance amendment in valid including holding street campaigns and one-man demonstrations. 

○ 2010 March 23 ~ April 1 Seoul Metropolitan Council held the Extraordinary Session 221
▶ Session 221 was the last term in office of the Council before the upcoming local elections of June 2. Thus the campaigners focused on efforts to pass the bill within the session. However, the Council shortened the session days from March 23 to April 1,which was supposed to be from March 23 to April 6)  originally, for the reason of preparing the local election schedule.

※ progressions during the extraordinary session 221 of Seoul Metropolitan Council

▶ March 23 (Tue)
– We held a meeting with the Chairman of the Administration Committee (Kim Young-lo, the acting chairman)
– We held a press conference to demand approval of the Ordinance Amendment regarding the use of Seoul Square which was proposed by the initiative system.
– We promoted a street campaign to send messages or call members of the Seoul City Council to demand approval of the Ordinance Amendment.

▶ March 24 (Wed) ~ April 1
– We held one-man demonstrations for an hour every single day in front of the Council office building demanding approval of the Ordinance Amendment proposed by the initiative system.

▶ March 25 (Thu) Administration Committee delayed consideration of the bill claiming they were in need of deep discussion on the bill regarding the use of Seoul Square. Members of the campaign for promoting the bill attended the committee meeting as part of public hearing. [A statement issued on March 26 : Is Seoul Council tending to make useless of signatures gathered by 100,000 citizens for the Ordinance Amendment]

▶ March 29 (Mon) We had a press conference to denounce the committee’s delay of  the bill and to call for bringing the bill to the regular session.

▶ March 30 (Wed) We had a meeting with Chairman of the Administration Committee, Kim Young-lo and required him to discuss the ordinance amendments proposed by 100,000 citizens with the committee on the day and, if necessary to discuss it every day and not ignore citizens’ participation.

[A statement issued on March 23: Placing Responsibility to Administration Committee of Seoul Council on ignoring Citizens’ Opinion]

The statement contains that:
– The Administration Committee is trying to delay passing the bill until the end of the committee’s term
– The committees’ delaying only means that the ruling party, the Grand National Party, and the Seoul Committee which is dominated by of the Grand National Party, are ignoring citizens’ requests to reopen Seoul Square.

▶ March 31 (Wed) We required the Chairman of the Seoul Metropolitan Council, Kim Ki-sung, to make a decision to pass the bill. A petition presented to the chairman
– Urges urgent progress to conclude the date for the consideration progress of the bill and to bring it to the general session. If necessary, the committee has to prolong the term of general session for five days or begin another extraordinary session again for consideration of the bill before the upcoming local elections.

▶ April 1 (Thu)
– The extraordinary session 221 of the Seoul Metropolitan Council ended.
– We had a meeting with the Chairman of the Seoul Metropolitan Council and urged him to bring the bill to the regular session.
– We held one-man demonstrations simultaneously censuring the Administration Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council for evading the consideration process of the bill and for delaying consideration of the bill during the regular session.
– Lee Geum la, a Democratic Party member, denounced the Administration Committee and requested it open provisional and extraordinary sessions during the five minute of comments at the regular session.