A Seoul court imposed monetary penalties on former and incumbent lawmakers affiliated with the former Liberty Korea Party(LKP), the predecessor of the current People Power Party(PPP), for blocking procedures to fast-track a package of reform bills in 2019.

The Seoul Southern District Court on Thursday ordered PPP Rep. Na Kyung-won, then LKP floor leader, to pay 24 million won, or around 16-thousand U.S. dollars, for obstruction of performance of official duties, and handed then-LKP leader Hwang Kyo-ahn a fine of 19 million won.

Current PPP floor leader Song Eon-seog was ordered to pay eleven-point-five million won, and four other PPP lawmakers and two former representatives now heading municipal governments were slammed with fines ranging from one-point-five million won to eleven-point-five million won.

The court chastised the former and incumbent lawmakers for violating the National Assembly's decision-making guidelines, introduced by parliament to self-examine past wrongdoings and restore public trust.

It said that, regardless of the bills' legality, the group had undermined public trust by illegally obstructing their fellow lawmakers' legislative activities, and that the ensuing physical clashes are neither subject to lawmakers' immunity nor to the exercise of the right of resistance.

All those convicted are likely to keep their parliamentary seats or posts as local government chiefs even after the Supreme Court upholds the rulings, since the lower threshold in general criminal cases is prison without hard labor.