At a plenary meeting held at the National Assembly on the 26th, Yoon Ho-jung (center), chairman of the Legal Justice Law Committee, is talking with Paik Hye-ryeon (left), a secretary of the Democratic Party, and Kim Do-eup, secretary of the people’s strength, about whether to deal with the amendment to the medical law. News 1
On the 26th, the amendment to the medical law that canceled the licenses of doctors sentenced to imprisonment or higher for violent crimes for up to five years was canceled. It did not exceed the threshold of the National Assembly Legislative Judicial Committee. At the meeting that day, opposition party lawmakers put a brake on reasons such as the’principle of prohibiting excess’, and the ruling party lawmakers also stepped back and the bill was delayed. Criticism has also been raised that the political power has been pushed back to the backlash of the Korean Medical Association, which strongly opposed the handling of the bill, even referring to the’general strike’.
Initially, the amendment to the medical law was expected to be handled by the judiciary committee on that day and then to the plenary session. This is because on the 19th, the opposition party was not actively opposing the relevant standing committee, the Health and Welfare Committee, through an agreement between the opposition parties. However, the atmosphere of the discussion on the judiciary committee on this day was somewhat different. In particular, opposition from opposition lawmakers was strong. Rep. Jang Je-won said, “For crimes such as murder, robbery, and sex offenses, the license must be revoked, but it is against the least invasiveness to revoke the license due to crimes that are not related to duty, such as defamation and traffic accidents.” .
Rep. Yoon Han-hong of the same party also said, “The previous law was revised to the current law in 2000 because there was a problem.” Since 1973, the medical law has revoked the license when sentenced to imprisonment or higher regardless of crime. However, when the government revised the medical law in 2000, the scope of crimes subject to license cancellation was narrowed down to’job-related crimes under the criminal law such as false diagnosis and crimes related to health care’.
However, members of the Democratic Party, including Rep. Kim Yong-min, argued the necessity of dealing with the bill, saying, “Doctors are professions that deal with human bodies and lives, and must possess not only high-level professional skills, but also ethics and morality.” When the opposition parties were unable to narrow the gap, Democratic Party lawmaker Yoon Ho-jung, chairman of the Legislative Justice Commission, said, “The next committee decided to deal with it,” and officially canceled the provisional parliamentary process.
The apparent reason for the unsuccessful treatment of the amendment to the medical law on this day is the difference of opinion between the opposition parties. However, in the political world, it was said that the opposition party was conscious of the backlash from the medical community in the phase of the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19). Immediately after the amendment to the actual medical law was processed by the Welfare Committee, Kim Jong-in, head of the People’s Strength Emergency Response Committee, said, “I don’t understand why (the Democratic Party is trying to deal with) a law that touches a doctor’s planting at a time when doctor cooperation is absolutely necessary.” . Even toward the ruling party’s slowdown, which was able to push the process, there was a story saying, “Are you conscious of the 4-7 by-election?” A member of the Democratic Party said, “It seems that the preferential treatment for the profession remains (still in the politics).”
Hyunbin Kim reporter [email protected]
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