The formation of parliament involves deciding who will serve as the heads of individual standing committees and which lawmakers will be appointed to each group. Common sense and precedents determine the formation of the standing committees. There is no reason for this process to take 82 days, while around 600 bills crucial to the livelihood of the public gather dust while waiting for passage. But this type of behavior is nothing new for our politicians.

A short while ago, Cheong Wa Dae overturned a plan formulated by the floor leader of the ruling Grand National Party. This move incited the opposition party even more. It is impossible to make political progress as long as the level of communication within the administration remains this way. At the last minute, the DP used the mad cow hysteria as an excuse to insist on revising the Act on the Prevention of Livestock Epidemics as a precondition to forming standing committees. The party blocked the formation of standing committees and tried to amend a law first, even though individual committees must be formed first in order to revise the law.

Now, the chances are that much greater for one party to block the formation of parliament and make political demands. This could become a bad habit in the National Assembly. As long as our politics stay at this level, we may have to revise the National Assembly Law by forming parliamentary standing committees mechanically reflecting the results of general elections.

The ruling and opposition parties agreed to amend the act by automatically imposing a five-year ban on imports of beef from cattle 30 months or older from countries where an outbreak of mad cow disease is reported, while the resumption of imports would require National Assembly deliberation. But lawmakers agreed to honor the Korea-U.S. beef accord by requiring Korea to abide by existing import health requirements for U.S. beef and beef products. Seoul and Washington already agreed to halt imports of American beef should a case of mad cow disease break out in the U.S. If the DP had blocked the formation of parliament until now for this reason, then it cannot avoid criticism for going too far.

The DP sat still 10 years ago when mad cow disease became a global problem. But the reason it insists on the amendment, even though there are hardly any cases of mad cow disease reported around the world now, is because it wants to win the support of anti U.S. beef protesters. The lack of flexibility displayed by the ruling party was a problem too, but as long as this type of behavior by the opposition remains unchanged, the National Assembly and lawmaker will not be able to do their jobs properly.