Two of the five members of the now-defunct Unified Progressive Party who lost their parliamentary seats when the Constitutional Court outlawed the party have announced that they will run in the by-elections for the seats they lost.
Lee Sang-kyu will run in Seoul’s Gwanak district, and Kim Mi-hyui will compete in a district in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, in the by-elections slated for April 29. A third ex-UPP lawmaker, Oh Byung-yun, may also run in his former constituency in Gwangju.
It is utterly frustrating that they are allowed to run in the by-elections because there is no law against it. It is comical that the nation’s top court outlawed a political party because it threatened the basic democratic system of the republic and expelled its members from the parliament but that they are still legally eligible to contest legislative seats.
This stupidity stems from a lack of relevant legal codes. In fact, even the expulsion of the five ex-UPP lawmakers was not based on the law, but on a court decision.
This ambiguity resulted in an awkward situation ― among the local councilors who belonged to the UPP, only those who were elected under the proportional representation system were disqualified.
All these confusions surrounding the UPP are reminiscent of a similar case in Germany. West Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court banned the neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party in 1952, and disqualified its members from the parliament in the absence of legal codes. Unlike us, though, they moved quickly to revise the law.
We also had someone with foresight. Rep. Kim Jin-tae of the Saenuri Party authored a bill to revise the Public Official Election Law in 2013 to deprive members of an outlawed political party of their seats at the national and local legislatures and local governments. The bill also calls for banning those ousted from elected offices for 10 years. Unfortunately, few followed up on the legislative process.
The National Assembly should act quickly to work on the bill or prepare an updated version so that wrongheaded radicals cannot challenge the nation’s constitutional order and judicial system in the name of political freedom.
The ruling party may well lead the legislation program. It would be wrong if it makes a short-sighted political calculation that the ex-UPP members’ participation in the parliamentary by-elections will split the opposition vote and increase its candidates’ chances.
