On March 24-25, 2011, the National Election Commission held a symposium to discuss how to make a revision to the Acts that govern its activities (Public Official Election Act, Political Parties Act, and Political Fund Act, hereinafter called “the Acts”) in order to contribute to the further improvement of Korea’s political system. The participants were the experts in the fields of politics, academia, media, and civic organizations.

The topics covered in the symposium were increasing voter’s participation in elections, mitigating regionalism, enhancing fairness in overseas voting, and raising political funds transparently.

The symposium started with the opening speech by NEC’s Standing Commissioner Dr. Kang Kyung-keun, and was divided into six sessions with 32 discussants in total (each session had 5~6 experts as participants).

On the first day of the symposium, NEC’s Chief Election Officer Kim Yong-hee made presentations on the subjects of ‘How to improve National Assembly elections to mitigate regionalism’, and ‘Ways to introduce a Primary Election’. And Director-General of Overseas Election Jeong Hoon-gyo delivered a presentation with the title of ‘Measures to increase accessibility for overseas voters and to ensure procedural fairness’.

The subjects of the presentations on the second day were as follows: ‘Effective punishment on the election crimes committed overseas’ by Director-General of Investigation Youn Seog-keun; ‘Measures to strike a balance between the freedom and fairness of elections’ by Director-General of Legal Affairs Choo Hyung-kwan; and ‘Appropriate and smooth financing of political funds and the means to achieve transparency in its process’ by Director-General of Political Party Bureau Son Jae-kwon.

The NEC said that it will have discussion on the revision to the Acts in its meeting of Commissioners (scheduled on April 4) to determine its revision bill, which will be submitted to the National Assembly.