If a prosecutor makes vulgar sexual advances to female journalists during a work-related dinner, that can be an individual problem. There are a few bad apples anytime, anywhere.
But if the Prosecutor General decides to discipline him with just a slap on the wrist, it’s a problem for the entire prosecution.
And if a lawyer defends the prosecutor and instead blames the victims, that reflects the sheer ignorance and insensitivity to the gross fault of sexual harassment in the whole judiciary circle ― or rather the nation’s establishment.
The 48-year-old chief prosecutor quickly apologized to the women reporters and offered to resign. Aside from the out-of-court settlement, if any, between the offender and the offended, the authorities should not accept his resignation but sack him, to keep him from working as a lawyer for at least three years.
Anything less would cause popular distrust about the prosecution’s will to drive out officials guilty of sexual bias and discrimination from the highest institution of law enforcement. Last June, the prosecution let another chief prosecutor who coerced probationary judicial officers to dance with him off the hook with just a pay cut. In 1999, it placed a prosecutor who also harassed female court reporters on just 25 days of probation. Little wonder similar incidents take place almost periodically.
Equally, if not more, egregious is the director for public relations at the Korea Bar Association, who blamed the reporters for providing the reason for the harassment by attending the dinner. The remark might have had a modicum of persuasion had he rebuked male reporters, too. Otherwise, the lawyer was seriously confused between cause and effect. It was little better than scolding the victims of pickpockets for carrying wallets.
All this should come as little surprise in a society where even the National Assembly refuses to oust lawmakers guilty of glaring episodes of sexual harassment. Korean women have come a long way toward equity, but the road before them appears to be even longer and more tortuous.
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