Justice Is Lost When Its Guardians Are Politicized

If a society is to remain just and fair, two groups should remain independent from politics ― prosecutors and journalists.

What's happening now in Korea's prosecution and news media may explain then why an increasing number of Koreans think their society is becoming hopelessly unfair and unjust.

The two professions are supposed to protect the weak and poor from the brutality of the wicked and/or powerful. In Korea, however, some prosecutors and media outlets ― mainly large conservative papers ― are doing the exact opposite: They punish and scold the grassroots for challenging or protesting those in power, wearing glasses tinted with ideological colors.

It's been quite a long time since people started to regard the prosecution as the cat's paw of the ruling elite. In the 1970s, some prosecutors even self-disparagingly said, ``We are like dogs ready to snap when told to.'' It's doubtful whether such thorough ``service minds" have eased ― if not strengthened ― these days.

In a recent series of socially controversial investigations, ranging from the late former President's bribery scandal to the TV report criticizing the government's beef imports and to the fatal crackdown on squatters in a redevelopment zone, the prosecution invited popular criticism both because of its harshness on the powerless and subservience to the powerful and because of its reckless infringement on the basic rights of individuals involved.

This comes in stark contrast to their Japanese counterparts, who have regained popular trust by boldly plunging scalpels into the corruption of the ``live" power, as witnessed in the three most famous scandals involving Lockheed, Recruit and Sagawa Logistics.

Media outlets are never free from blame for fighting with one another while engrossed in ideological bias and corporate selfishness. So much so they look like referees of sports games who have forgotten their roles and play the games themselves.

A case in point is the government's media bill, which calls for, among other things, allowing newspapers ― large ones under Korea's present reality ― to also engage in broadcasting business and over which the entire media community is split in two. In Japan, the permission on simultaneous operations of newspapers and broadcasters in the 1960s is said to have resulted in serious monopolization of public opinion, helping its government justify its imperialist past while never reflecting on wartime atrocity in earnest.

The excessive politicization of Korea's prosecutors and journalists, however, is just preparation for many of them to transform themselves into politicians. For example, there are only two prosecutor-turned-lawmakers among Japan's 722 legislators in both houses. In Korea's 299-member unicameral Assembly, 22 lawmakers were once prosecutors. The number of parliamentarians who were former journalists is also far larger here than in Japan.

Because of all these, we are really concerned with President Lee Myung-bak's new nominee for prosecutor-general, the man who orchestrated the investigations into the controversial TV program and the redevelopment tragedy. At his confirmation hearing, the National Assembly must reject his nomination unless he offers plausible explanations about his track record.