National Assembly Speaker Cho Jeong-sik said Tuesday he would establish a special constitutional reform committee through consultations between the ruling and opposition parties to put constitutional reform discussions "on the main track" next year. He also expressed his intention to designate Dec. 3 as "National Sovereignty Day."
Cho made the remarks at his first press briefing since taking office, held at Sarangjae in the National Assembly building. "We will pursue constitutional reform calmly and boldly, as I proposed to the people on Constitution Day," he said. Earlier, in his Constitution Day address on July 17, Cho proposed drafting a people's sovereignty constitutional amendment in 2027 and completing the revision within the current 22nd National Assembly, whose term runs through May 29, 2028.
On the passage of livelihood and reform legislation, Cho said he would make up for time lost to negotiations over committee assignments by working at a faster pace. "Going forward, bills that have cleared the standing committees and the Legislation and Judiciary Committee and come to the floor will, as a rule, be voted on within the same session," he said.
He added that an amendment to the Framework Act on Carbon Neutrality — which the Constitutional Court has ruled incompatible with the Constitution — must be passed by the end of August, and that other bills already referred to the floor and awaiting a vote would also be handled swiftly.
Cho said the slogan for the second half of the Assembly's term would be "A National Assembly that opens the future together with the people," and outlined four core visions: a people's sovereignty Assembly realized through participation, a livelihood-focused Assembly that protects people's lives, a future-leaping Assembly for growth and prosperity and a national-interest diplomacy Assembly for peace and prosperity.
On the four visions, Cho said he would designate Dec. 3 — the day the people saved the Constitution and democracy through their dedication — as "National Sovereignty Day." He also said he would regularize plenary sessions to improve predictability and establish a "livelihood legislation week" for the swift passage of bills directly tied to people's lives and safety.
Cho said the Assembly would build a strategic and systematic framework for parliamentary diplomacy, anchored by the newly established foreign affairs and security chief's office — the first of its kind in the Assembly's history — along with the National Interest Diplomacy Advisory Committee, a think tank, and a foreign affairs and security strategy center to be set up in the future. He added that the "inter-Korean parliamentary talks" he proposed on Constitution Day would be pursued patiently and without haste as a path toward peace.
Cho also pledged to launch an Economy Great Leap Committee as a standing cooperation body between the Assembly and the business community, activate a ruling-opposition consultative body on livelihood legislation, push forward construction of the National Assembly's Sejong annex, pass a special law on the administrative capital within the year, and build a Gwangju branch of the National Assembly Library.
On the contentious debate over abolishing prosecutors' supplementary investigative powers, Cho acknowledged that "the harm caused by prosecutors' abuse of investigative authority has been raised as a problem for a very long time." However, he said cases had been raised in which investigations into society's vulnerable were sometimes neglected in that process, or innocent victims were harmed, and that the Legislation and Judiciary Committee was currently discussing supplementary measures to address those concerns. "I will watch that process to the end and make my judgment," he said.
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