By ANDY JACKSON
Marmot??s Hole Guest Blogger
When the Roh administration gave a mass pardon on Liberation Day, we all knew that the stage was set for some corrupt politicians to make their way back into public life.
Well, that didn’t take long:
Among the politicians testing the waters after the Liberation Day presidential pardon two weeks ago, Chyung Dai-chul, the former governing Uri Party member, is drawing particular attention. Convicted of bribery and illegal fundraising for the 2002 presidential election for Roh Moo-hyun, Mr. Chyung is one of the most controversial beneficiaries of this pardon.
Maybe I’m being prudish, but I think that Roh could have at least waited until the end of his administration before pardoning his own batch of crooks. It’s just bad form.
Mass pardons are nothing new, but they are usually the stuff of dictators. By sweeping away convictions (both real and trumped up) a dictator reinforces his position as the absolute state authority. In that sense, mass pardons are just as damaging as kangaroo courts to maintaining the rule of law.
The strange thing in Korea’s case is that the practice of mass pardons (and the inevitable slipping in of friends of the president) has continued through successive democratically elected administrations.
Which is why the Korean body politic keeps finding itself covered in recycled scum.
18 Comments
I really can’t understand why this is still allowed.
Letting convicted drunk drivers bakc behind the wheel (just to name one offence) boggles my mind.
Marmot,
I don’t know much about politics and laws, and, in my ignorance, I tend to dislike mass pardons too, but, for sure, mass pardons are not specific to dictatorships. In France, they have been inherited from the monarchy. The king always had the right to free someone who was legally convicted by a tribunal, or to commute a sentence (as commuting a death sentence into life prison or whatever). Of course, these pardons could apply to specific categories of inmates, hence the “mass” aspect. Maybe it is what makes you uncomfortable?
Despite I hate writing this, it seems that after a nation changes political regime, as in France after WW II, it is useful, or inevitable, to pardon certain kinds of unpleasant persons, as criminals or traitors. For instance, the equivalent of the Supreme Court (Conseil Constitutionel) and the “just below court” (Cour de Cassation) needed to work after the Liberation, and despite the judges there (excepting a few ones) all pledged allegiance to the Marechal Petain’s regime, they “had” to be pardoned.
There are plenty similar examples, I think.
Again, I dislike mass pardons, called amnesties (?), but things seems more complex that I can grab.
Of course, in the case of drunk drivers, it is clearly highly questionable, but then it is the *application* of the amnesty, not the principle of the amnesty itself, which is at stake.
“recycled scum”, what more poignant word than that?
There have been thousands of names who have been pardoned. The biggest of them all is Chun Doo Hwan. He was responsible for hundreds of deaths at Kwangju 1980. Very little is talked about this, but this was South Korea’s secret concentration camp known as Samchong Reeducation camp - the conditions were a bit better than the Nazi death camps. It is unbelievable that people like this are not properly punished, not only that they get to keep their ill-gotten fortunes which they secretly transfer out to Swiss bank accounts.
I too don’t understand why this is allowed to happen even under supposedly democratic governments. I just have one theory. It’s that all of them are corrupt, so they’re trying to protect a system that they may need and depend on, a few years down the road.
To be fair to Roh, his pardon covers a wide range of political scumbags or various political stripes, not just his friends. And while I don’t mean to make excuses for illegal fundraising, Korean election laws in general and campaign contribution laws in particular are so Byzantine, and the political game so ruthless (and expensive!), that to win you almost have to bend the rules. I don’t believe there’s as much of a pressing need to punish individuals whose crime was, ultimately, getting caught as there is need to reform a questionable election system.
I don??t believe there??s as much of a pressing need to punish individuals whose crime was, ultimately, getting caught as there is need to reform a questionable election system.
Really? It’s not as if we’re talking about the commission of crimes which were not crimes at the time they were committed - bribery and graft are trade-tools to these guys, yet have always been labeled as criminal acts.
If you want to reform a system, then you must also respect the integrity of that system. Holding politicians accountable for their illegal activities demonstrates that value to all.
In Korean politics loyalty to the person is of paramount importance with the idea of loyalty to ideals or to systems rather utopian-nice to talk about but not seen as being realistically achievable. Virtue among politicians is like whores arguing over who is still a virgin. The marmot is right, the system needs to be changed BUT because as it is now, it is in the best interests of the politicians NOT to change the system. Really, this is a problem not unique to Korea but quite common in all democracies including the US-granted, things are perhaps a little more subtle there and maybe here in Korea some of the graft and corruption goes beyond bold in it scope but it is not only a Korean phenomena. In Korea, the facts are kept much more secret than they are in other democracies such that many elected officials commit huge crimes in relative secrecy only to have their misdeeds come to light when they leave office. I want to say that perhaps it is the reluctance to accuse and criticize their leaders that prevents the Korean people from becoming angry enough to make the changes to the system that are necessary but I think about US politics and see the same thing there-people that criticize leaders and accuse them of misdeeds are in turn attacked and labeled anti-American or unpatriotic. I surmise the bottom line is that people will be people and will find a way to be dishonest if that is their intent, no matter what.
I can understand the political rationale for a mass pardon. No one is NOT going to vote for Roh’s party because of these pardons, but there will be people (the pardoned ones and their family members) who most definitely will vote for him and his party next time around because of the mass pardons. Patronage kinda.
Also, if Korean society (like many societies actually) is such that a disgraced politician can indeed make a comeback, then that politician once in power owes a bit to Roh.
There appears to be no accountability in Korea. You are never responsible for your actions, or seemingly held accountable.
Everyone knows, if you’re caught with your hand in the cookie jar, you look contrite, mumble a few platitudes, and make arrangements for your next bribe money to be delivered in plain brown boxes.
I wish someone could tell me what a President does here. It appears to be, it’s either going on vacation, or making the grand tour of other capitals.
Mr. Roh does not appear to have a clue of what a leader does.
The pardons were an act of a desperate Uridang. It is a clear sign that they recognize their vulnerability to public opinion. Such blatant misuse of executive pardons will only fuel the public’s contempt of their party and the public’s continuing distrust of politicians in general. I would put money on the GNP winning this next time around.
I really begin to wonder if I’m getting old because it seems that regardless of the country I read about and visit, if see crooks and begin to think more often of Diogenes.
Kimchee-breath writes:I wish someone could tell me what a President does here. It appears to be, it??s either going on vacation, or making the grand tour of other capitals.Vacationing presidents?
Just which president are we talking about here?
“It was/is ‘inevitable’” — what passes for a “justification” in Korea
Don’t undersetimate the ability of the GNP to screw things up just before an election, or for the Uri to pull something out of their ass and win.
The whole “sweeping pardon” thing is like a throwback to the days of kings and seems ripe for abuse–Koreans might want to disallow the president this particular power.
I wonder if my parking tickets have all been erased.
Tsk tsk, Kushibo, don’t be a scofflaw :p
Scofflaw? Isn’t that the U.S. legal database?
Mmmm…it’s:
link
And here’s a Seinfeld episode as a bonus:
http://www.stanthecaddy.com/th.....cript.html
Everyone knows, if you??re caught with your hand in the cookie jar, you look contrite, mumble a few platitudes, and make arrangements for your next bribe money to be delivered in plain brown boxes.
Or, delivered in apple-crates (as are sometimes preferred by Korean politicians on the take, since they look like simple gifts of fruit).