현행 국회 소위원회 직회부 운영의 입법권침해 문제와 개선방향

The current National Assembly Act adopts a standing-committee-centered system and provides for subcommittees to ensure more thorough deliberation and voting on agenda items. For efficient agenda review, it operates a mechanism allowing direct referral to subcommittees. Introduced in 1988, the direct-referral system is codified in the National Assembly Act. Under this system, when a new bill or agenda item directly related to a matter already under review by a subcommittee is referred to the standing committee, the committee chair—upon consultation with the floor leaders—may, if deemed necessary, immediately refer the item to the relevant subcommittee for consolidated deliberation. This direct-referral mechanism has become a routine legislative procedure, accounting for approximately 10 percent of all matters disposed of during the 21st National Assembly. The problem, however, is that the system is frequently administered in an ad hoc and discretionary manner. More than half (55.6 percent) of the agenda items processed through direct referral during the 21st National Assembly lacked any identifiable grounds such referral. Even where reasons were recorded, they were often extremely vague or abstract. Because direct referral to subcommittees constitutes part of the formal decision-making procedure of the National Assembly—and because such procedures safeguard the deliberation and voting rights of Members of the National Assembly—the deficient administration of the system directly infringes upon those rights. This, in turn, risks devolving into an abuse of the Assembly’s autonomous procedural authority, ultimately threatening the core principles of representative democracy. Motivated by these concerns, this study proposes legislative measures to strengthen the integrity of the direct-referral system. Specifically, it examines the problems inherent in the system’s abstract and indeterminate criteria, as well as instances of misuse arising in the decision-making process. Based on this analysis, the study offers legislative reforms aimed at concretizing the requirements for direct referral, enhancing the substantive nature of the consultation procedure, and otherwise improving the procedural soundness of the system.