The National Election Commission (NEC) of the Republic of Korea submitted to the National Assembly a revised bill on the Public Official Election Act(hereafter ‘Election Act’) which focuses on ensuring freedom of political expression and of expanded election campaigns on April 21st.

The current election act has been criticised that the methods for election campaigns were excessively limited without reflecting heightened level of public awareness of political participation and improved election culture.

Especially under the circumstances that the regulations on election campaigns through online, phone, or spoken words have been lifted, it is viewed as an overly restrictive measure to limit freedom of political expression when it comes to facilities and printed matter just because they are thought to have an impact on elections to some degree; the call for improving the systems has been demanded as well.

Since the voice for revising the restriction-focused election act was raised more than ever particularly during the recent re and by-election, the NEC said that it first prepared a revised bill on the election act for the expansion of freedom of political expression and finalized the revised bill after a plenary meeting of the Commission.

Upon the submission of the legislative proposal to revise the election act in 2013 and 2016, its effort did not come to fruition. However, the NEC urges academia, civic organisations, and media to take interests, so that it can bring the general consensus within the political circles this time.

In addition, apart from the expansion of freedom of political expression, the NEC plans to submit to the National Assembly a revised bill on political laws this year in order to improve the other election systems properly.

The main contents of the revised bill are below:

□ Expansion of freedom of political expression using facilities and printed matter(Election Act Articles 90 and 93 (1))

- Allowing people to express their political views using facilities and printed matter within the scope where it does not fall under the acts of election campaigning before the period of election campaigns upon abolition of the current Article 90 and Article 93 (1)

- Anyone who is eligible for election campaigns will be allowed to engage in campaigning activities using facilities and printed matter during the campaigning period. Except for the cases prescribed by this Act such as the use of banners, posters, and name cards of a candidate, the election campaigning activities which specify the name of a political party, and the name or photograph of a candidate used for facilities and printed matter are prohibited.

□ A voter is allowed to engage in election campaigns with campaign goods at his or her own expense(Election Act Article 68).

- Anyone who is eligible for campaigning is allowed to post, wear, or possess campaign goods, or indicating materials such as sashes, hats, labels, and hand pickets that he or she designed or purchased at his or her own expense during the period of election campaigns.

- As for the expenses for designing and purchasing campaign goods or indicating materials used by staff of a candidate campaign office, they are to be paid by the candidate according to the current act.

□ Expansion of permissible range of expression for soliciting voting participation (Election Act Article 58-2 3 and 4):

- Any person may solicit others to participate in voting using facilities and printed matter: Provided, that the same shall not apply to any of the following acts:

1. Using the name or photograph(drawing included) of a political party or a candidate;

2. Using marks, symbols and mascots that can be inferred about the name of a political party or a candidate;

- Soliciting others to participate in voting by supporting, recommending, or opposing a specific political party or candidate during the election campaigning period is permitted with the limited forms of election campaign allowed by the current election act. Therefore, this article needs to be deleted.