The National Assembly held a plenary session on the 14th and passed an amendment to the Police Officers' Act on the Execution of Duties. The filibuster standoff in the extraordinary session that began on the 11th has, for now, come to a close.
That afternoon, the National Assembly opened a plenary session and, led by the Democratic Party of Korea, put the amendment to the Police Officers' Act on the Execution of Duties to a vote, passing it with 174 votes in favor out of 174 present.
The amendment allows police officers to directly stop or order the dispersal of those who launch leaflets to North Korea and similar materials. Along with the Aviation Safety Act, which passed the National Assembly on the 2nd, the People Power Party opposed it, calling it a "revival of the ban on sending leaflets to North Korea." As soon as it was placed on the agenda at the plenary session on the 13th, the People Power Party launched a filibuster (a lawful obstruction of proceedings through unlimited debate).
About 24 hours after the filibuster began, around 4 p.m. that day, the Democratic Party submitted a motion to end the filibuster, and after a vote, the filibuster concluded. In the subsequent vote on the amendment to the Police Officers' Act on the Execution of Duties, the bill was handled under the Democratic Party's lead.
With this, the first round of the ruling and opposition parties' filibuster standoff in the extraordinary session that began on the 11th came to an end. Since the 11th, the Democratic Party has passed one bill each day. Following the amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act to make lower court judgments in criminal cases public and the amendment to the Banking Act to prevent banks from reflecting insurance premiums under the Depositor Protection Act and contributions to the Korea INclusive Finance Agency (KINFA) in loan rate calculations, the amendment to the Police Officers' Act on the Execution of Duties passed that day.
After a pause while National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-sik is abroad, the ruling and opposition parties plan to reconvene the plenary session on the 21st to handle contentious bills. With the ruling party signaling action on bills with major disagreements between the parties, such as the establishment of a dedicated disaster trial panel, another filibuster standoff is highly likely.