The National Assembly Should Not Undermine Entrepreneurial Initiative

Cho Hyung gon

Secretary-General, 

Citizens United for Better Society

< Table of Contents >

1. Business Leaders’ Time Is Too Valuable to Waste on Parliamentary Appearances

2. The Hidden Costs to Business

3. Different Views of Business Depending on Political Position

4. Business Leaders Belong in the Market, Not the National Assembly

1. Business Leaders’ Time Is Too Valuable to Waste on Parliamentary Appearances

In 1999, fashion designer Andr? Kim appeared as a witness at a National Assembly hearing on the so-called “clothing lobby” scandal. During the oath-taking process, he was asked to state his legal name rather than his professional name. He replied, “Kim Bong-nam.” That single remark remained in the public memory for years. Far fewer people remember what the hearing itself actually uncovered. Parliamentary hearings and National Assembly audits are institutions designed to establish the truth. Yet sometimes, the spectacle outlives the truth.

In 2021, The Dong-A Ilbo conducted a comprehensive analysis of the transcripts of 41 plenary meetings of 11 standing committees at which 119 non-government witnesses appeared during the annual National Assembly audit. The meetings lasted a combined 250 hours and 13 minutes. On average, each witness spoke for just three minutes and 41 seconds. Of the 119 witnesses, 91 or 76.5 percent spoke for less than five minutes. Bang Kyung-man, then vice president of KT&G, waited for about three hours and answered questions for only 37 seconds. Yu Jeong-jun, president of SK E&S, spoke for 14 seconds, while Lee Wan-jae, president of SKC, spoke for 19 seconds. Park Hong-kyun, CEO of Tuntun English, waited three hours and 40 minutes without receiving a single question.

The situation was much the same during the 2024 National Assembly audit. According to an analysis by JoongAng Ilbo of witness lists from 15 standing committees, 159 of the 470 non-government witnesses were businesspeople. Ahn Cheol-hyun, vice president of Apple Korea, appeared before the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee and waited for seven hours from 2 p.m. It was not until 9 p.m. that he received his first and only question. His answer lasted three minutes and 40 seconds. Three minutes is roughly the amount of time a panelist on a televised debate might have to offer a single opinion.

A National Assembly audit is not a television debate. It is a formal state procedure through which the legislature requires individuals whose testimony is necessary to clarify matters of public administration to appear before it. Why summon someone who could provide all that was needed in 37 seconds after waiting three hours? Why require a chief executive to appear over a matter that could be addressed in 14 seconds? Why summon someone whom no one intends to question at all? We should begin by recognizing that the National Assembly’s power to compel attendance is, for businesspeople, a form of authority that is difficult to refuse.

2. The Hidden Costs to Business

The cost to a company does not end with the hours its executives spend waiting at the National Assembly. The moment a CEO’s name is mentioned as a potential witness, the company’s government relations, legal, public relations, and relevant business units spring into action. They gather materials, prepare anticipated questions, and draft responses. According to accounts from the business community, once a CEO is selected as a witness for a National Assembly audit, corporate personnel and organizational resources can be tied up in preparations for nearly a month. Companies begin preparing weeks in advance for a single day at the National Assembly.

Businesses scramble to adapt to political risk. They monitor which standing committee is dealing with which issue and which lawmaker may seek to call which executive as a witness. Government-relations functions are strengthened simply to determine whether the name of a controlling shareholder or group chairman is likely to appear on a witness list. There have even been reported cases in which a company’s failure to identify in time the possibility that its chairman would be summoned was regarded as a failure of government relations, prompting the establishment of a new GR unit directly under the holding company after the audit. The ability to anticipate political developments is increasingly becoming part of corporate management.

Companies should compete on their ability to produce better products, develop new technologies, and open up global markets. The problem becomes different when the ability to anticipate the National Assembly’s moves and manage political risk also becomes part of corporate competitiveness. The more frequently lawmakers summon business leaders, the more companies strengthen their government-relations operations; and the stronger those operations become, the more closely companies monitor the political establishment.

In particular, when the Democratic Party was in opposition, there were repeated efforts to bring the heads of major business groups before National Assembly audits. Under the banners of “chaebol reform” and economic democratization, it actively demanded the appearance of the leaders of major companies such as Samsung and Hyundai Motor. In 2015, Yonhap News Agency reported that demands to call the heads of large business groups as witnesses were being raised primarily by the opposition. In 2016 as well, the opposition continued to press for the appearance of major business leaders, including Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo. When the head of a major corporation appears before the National Assembly, television cameras gather, and lawmakers’ rebukes and executives’ responses become news.

3. Different Views of Business Depending on Political Position

Once in power, however, the scene changes. When the Democratic Party became the ruling party in 2025, reports emerged that the party leadership had urged its lawmakers not to “indiscriminately request the heads of major business groups as National Assembly audit witnesses, as we did when we were in opposition.” In February 2026, President Lee Jae-myung held a meeting with business leaders from the country’s ten largest business groups on expanding youth employment and regional investment. The president asked the business community to increase youth hiring and investment in the regions, while the business sector announced plans under which the ten major groups would invest approximately KRW 270 trillion in the regions over the following five years and hire 51,600 new employees that year.

When in opposition, politicians haul business leaders before the National Assembly; once in power, they turn to business for help. Companies that yesterday were targets of “chaebol reform” become today’s problem-solvers for investment and employment. Whether businesspeople are treated as objects of political anger or as instruments of economic growth, it is worth questioning the underlying assumption that businesses are entities for politics to summon and mobilize whenever needed. Companies are neither political targets for the opposition nor instruments to be mobilized for a government’s investment agenda.

There are practical reasons why politics should not treat businesses arbitrarily. When the cost of doing business rises, companies postpone investment. When employment costs increase, they reduce new hiring or turn to automation. When domestic uncertainty rises and investment conditions abroad become more favorable, companies may locate their next production line overseas. Businesses do not respond by arguing with politicians. They respond through management decisions about investment and employment.

Studies of Korean firms have documented such responses. A 2025 study published in the Journal of Development Economics, analyzing firm-level data from 2013 to 2019, found that as labor-market regulation was strengthened after 2017, domestic employment at firms with overseas affiliates fell by approximately 3 percent, with the relocation of production activity overseas identified as the mechanism. Taxes also change corporate behavior. A 2022 study published in the American Economic Review examined a 2014 Korean tax reform that applied different capital-gains tax rates to major shareholders depending on firm size in order to assess the effect of changes in tax burdens on actual corporate investment. Firms facing lower tax burdens increased equity issuance and substantially expanded investment relative to comparison firms, with the effect particularly pronounced among firms facing tighter financing constraints.

4. Business Leaders Belong in the Market, Not the National Assembly

Protecting entrepreneurial initiative does not mean giving businesspeople special treatment. If a company breaks the law, it should be dealt with according to the law. Workers, businesspeople, politicians, and public officials are all equal before the law. Whether the issue is an industrial accident, accounting fraud, collusion, or harm to consumers, responsibility should be imposed in accordance with law and due process where responsibility exists. The rule of law does not mean applying harsher or more lenient rules to businesses. It means applying the same law according to the same principles to everyone.

The same principle should govern the National Assembly’s decision to summon business leaders. Is the matter directly related to a decision made by the executive concerned? Can it be addressed through testimony by the responsible officer or through the submission of documents, or is the personal appearance of the CEO genuinely necessary? Does the public interest justify the costs imposed on the company and society? The UK Parliament regards a committee’s use of compulsory summons as a “last resort,” to be employed when testimony is essential and repeated requests to appear have been refused. The reason is simple: authority must be exercised with restraint. If a witness is genuinely necessary, the legislature should summon that person and ask substantive questions. If not, the person should not be summoned in the first place.

Businesspeople are citizens too. The rights to property, occupational freedom, due process, and protection against arbitrary state power belong equally to everyone. This is also where the republican conception of liberty is relevant. Freedom does not mean merely the absence of interference; it also means freedom from domination by another’s arbitrary power. Just as companies must not arbitrarily dominate workers and consumers, political power must not arbitrarily dominate companies and businesspeople. Placing power under rules is a fundamental principle of a republic.

Factories are built because someone is willing to take risks and invest. Technology advances because someone is willing to venture into new businesses. When companies grow, supplier firms emerge and new jobs are created. Undermining entrepreneurial initiative is therefore not merely a problem for individual businesspeople. It becomes a problem for citizens who lose opportunities for investment and employment.

Do not turn businesspeople into political scapegoats or instruments to be mobilized for economic growth. The place businesses should be watching is not lawmakers’ offices but the market, and what businesspeople should fear is not a politician’s rebuke but the choices of consumers. Do not make businesses look toward politics. Let them look toward the market. That is the way to protect the freedom of entrepreneurs while expanding opportunities for the public.

※ The views expressed herein may differ from those of the Hansun Foundation.