National Assembly to hold plenary session Monday to vote on two pending bills
- 6 years ago
South Korea's National Assembly will be holding a plenary session this morning.... to vote on two highly contested bills -- the extra budget, and a bill that calls for a special probe into an online opinion rigging scandal.
It's long overdue... but rival parties have finally reached an agreement on the specifics of the bills after marathon negotiations through last week and over the weekend.
For more, we connect to our political correspondent Kim Min-ji.
Min-ji, so has the plenary session begun as planned?
Semin,
The plenary session got underway just a few minutes ago....
The plenary session has yet to convene...
Rival lawmakers will be voting on the government's extra budget as well as the bill that calls for a special probe into an online opinion rigging scandal.
The plenary session had initially been rescheduled twice before being called off,... as rival parties were at odds over the specifics of the three-point-six billion U.S. dollar extra budget bill.
After fine-tuning the details until late Sunday night... a sub-committee passed the revised version -- which is roughly 20 million dollars less than the initial proposal,... and the budget committee this morning also approved the revised version.
This comes over 40 days after the government submitted its proposal in early April.
Rival parties have also reached an agreement over the details of the special probe.
There will be a preparation period of 20 days... while the actual probe itself will last for 60 days.... that's subject to a one-time extension of 30 days.
As for the independent counsel that will lead the probe,... the Korean Bar Association will recommend four candidates -- of which the opposition bloc will select two -- while the final pick will be made by the president.
On the team will be also be three assistants to the independent counsel and 13 prosecutors.
To give you a recap of the opinion rigging scandal -- it revolves around a blogger with alleged ties with a former ruling party lawmaker -- who is known to have used a computer program to manipulate internet comments on political news articles... with growing speculation the blogger may also have been engaged in rigging activities in the run up to last year's presidential election.
The parties had agreed to vote on both issues at the same time,... as part of a compromise to end six weeks of inactivity.
Hopefully, I'll have some positive results in our later newscast.
Back to you Semin.
It's long overdue... but rival parties have finally reached an agreement on the specifics of the bills after marathon negotiations through last week and over the weekend.
For more, we connect to our political correspondent Kim Min-ji.
Min-ji, so has the plenary session begun as planned?
Semin,
The plenary session got underway just a few minutes ago....
The plenary session has yet to convene...
Rival lawmakers will be voting on the government's extra budget as well as the bill that calls for a special probe into an online opinion rigging scandal.
The plenary session had initially been rescheduled twice before being called off,... as rival parties were at odds over the specifics of the three-point-six billion U.S. dollar extra budget bill.
After fine-tuning the details until late Sunday night... a sub-committee passed the revised version -- which is roughly 20 million dollars less than the initial proposal,... and the budget committee this morning also approved the revised version.
This comes over 40 days after the government submitted its proposal in early April.
Rival parties have also reached an agreement over the details of the special probe.
There will be a preparation period of 20 days... while the actual probe itself will last for 60 days.... that's subject to a one-time extension of 30 days.
As for the independent counsel that will lead the probe,... the Korean Bar Association will recommend four candidates -- of which the opposition bloc will select two -- while the final pick will be made by the president.
On the team will be also be three assistants to the independent counsel and 13 prosecutors.
To give you a recap of the opinion rigging scandal -- it revolves around a blogger with alleged ties with a former ruling party lawmaker -- who is known to have used a computer program to manipulate internet comments on political news articles... with growing speculation the blogger may also have been engaged in rigging activities in the run up to last year's presidential election.
The parties had agreed to vote on both issues at the same time,... as part of a compromise to end six weeks of inactivity.
Hopefully, I'll have some positive results in our later newscast.
Back to you Semin.