A/HRC/32/36/Add.2 3. Political parties and associations pursuing political objectives 74. The political scene in the Republic of Korea has recently been dominated by the ruling Saenuri party, which held a majority in the National Assembly at the time of the Special Rapporteur’s visit. Parliamentary elections held in April 2016 saw the party lose its majority to the opposition Minjoo party. Despite this dynamic shift in the parliamentary scene, entry into the political arena is tightly controlled. Political party formation is difficult and groups expressing critical views of government policies, such as those relating to reunification with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or capitalism, find their freedom to express those views or organize and associate around them curtailed. 75. The Political Parties Act specifies onerous requirements in order to establish a political party. According to article 3 of the Act, a political party consists of a central party located in the capital and city or Do parties located in the metropolitan cities and Do (provinces). A political party must have at least five city/Do parties, each with at least 1,000 members. Articles 5 and 6 require that a preparatory committee, composed of at least 200 people in the case of the central party and 100 people for city and Do parties, organize the formation of the party. The preparatory committee has six months to fulfil all requirements to form the party. A registered party that does not maintain the requirements can have its registration revoked if it fails to correct those shortcomings within a given period (arts. 35 and 44). Currently, political parties rely on members for their funds, although the Special Rapporteur was informed that from 2017, non-members will be allowed to contribute to parties. Further, in order to run for elections, candidates need to pay a deposit which is non-refundable if he or she does not receive more than 10 per cent of the total valid votes. Availability of funds therefore determines the number of candidates that a party can offer for election. 76. It is understandable that some of these requirements are directed at ensuring that parties have a national outlook, diversity in party membership and a strong link between the party and its membership base. However, the effect is to make it difficult to establish new, smaller and localized parties, contrary to the stated objective of the National Election Commission of encouraging the establishment of political parties. The Special Rapporteur has noted previously that a minimum number of individuals may be required to establish a political party, but that number should not be set at a level that would discourage people from engaging in associations (see A/68/299, para. 31). The requirement to have a central party in the capital city and five city/Do parties is difficult to justify for individuals who want to engage in local politics. In addition, fixing a high number of founding members does not take into account a number of variables, such as the membership strength of dominant parties, the population of different cities and the resources available to smaller parties, all of which may prevent fledgling parties from increasing their membership numbers. Those requirements favour existing parties and close the space for new parties. 77. The Special Rapporteur spoke with members of associations that are in favour of reunification with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, but are critical of the reunification policy of the Republic of Korea. He also met with groups that advocate socialism as an alternative to the capitalist economic policy of the Republic of Korea. Those groups spoke of suppression of their views and repression that includes surveillance, confiscation of written material, arrests, imprisonment and stigmatization as being “proenemy”. He was informed that article 7 of the National Security Act, which prohibits praising, inciting or propagating the activities of anti-State organizations, acts of instigating or propagating a rebellion against the State, or joining organizations that engage in those acts, was used as a basis to prosecute members of such organizations. 16