The Article 45 of the Constitution says: No member of the National Assembly shall be held responsible outside the National Assembly for opinions officially expressed or votes cast in the Assembly.

It is under this clause that legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for statements they make in the National Assembly. The privilege includes legal immunity even from libel or slander.

In a sense, legislators need such immunity because they should be given freedom and autonomy to fulfill their mission of checking the executive branch. Moreover, providing a Constitutional guarantee for the immunity has been important, especially in Korea, which had gone through successive authoritarian governments.

Opposition lawmakers could freely criticize the government and disclose wrongdoings by the ruling elite under the cover of privilege.

A prime example is the 1995 parliamentary speech by opposition lawmaker Park Kye-dong, who disclosed in a parliamentary floor speech that former President Roh Tae-woo amassed a huge slush fund while he was in office.

The statement led to the punishment of Roh and his predecessor Chun Doo-hwan for pocketing illegal funds from tycoons. 

But privileged speech has its downsides as well. Lawmakers often abuse the immunity to accuse their political opponents and raise allegations. They make such statements in parliamentary meetings or news conferences inside the Assembly to protect what they say from legal liability.

Some of the problematic statements include libel, slander, rumors and even lies, all of which inflict severe damage on those mentioned by the legislators.

The case of Rep. Cho Eung-chon is a good example. In a meeting of the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee, the lawmaker claimed that a member of an advisory panel for the Supreme Court had committed sexual harassment.

Cho -- disclosing the member’s name, claimed that the member -- a senior television journalist -- had been suspended for two months because of the misdeed. He made the accusation in the parliamentary meeting, sent out a press release and used his social media to spread it.

As it turned out, Cho’s accusations turned out to be untrue. But all Cho had to do was offer a public apology. But what about the reputation and dignity of the man who was falsely accused?

This controversy should reawaken political parties to the need to limit the parliamentary immunity of free speech. Some raise doubts -- citing the difficulty of amending the Constitution, but revising the National Assembly Act and the ethics code for lawmakers would be able to keep lawmakers from engaging in libel or slander.

That could keep lawmakers like Cho from staying unscathed even though what they said ruin the dignity of innocent people like the TV journalist.