Presidential Pardon
It's Time to Stop Institutional Impairment of Legal System
Koreans have long associated the customary presidential pardon for prisoners with their national holidays. Granting clemency to offenders on national festivities is a universal phenomenon, but it is getting so frequent and habitual here as to hurt the law-abiding spirit of the people. A bigger problem is that the criteria for leniency appears to one-sidedly favor the haves and the powerful.
The nation's five major business associations are now asking President Lee Myung-bak to provide pardons for 70-odd convicted tycoons on Aug. 15. Expectations are higher than ever among the business community for two reasons: The CEO-turned-President is leading a pro-business government and this year marks the 60th birthday of the Republic of Korea. Some executives are even saying the number of acquitted business leaders will decide whether the Lee administration is really ``business-friendly'' or not. One can't help but admire their impudence.
There is by and large a fixed pattern of punishing corrupt and other law-breaking business leaders here _ indictment without detention followed by suspended sentences and presidential pardons. It becomes the top news story whenever one of them is put behind bars. Some owners of family-controlled conglomerates have even undergone this cycle two or three times. Little wonder Korea was ranked 28th out of 30 OECD members with regard to law-abidance.
A real joke is the reasons given when the government grants amnesty to corrupt businessmen and politicians: economic revival and national harmony. How can this country hope for ``sound" economic growth while continuing to set free white-collar criminals incurring billions of dollars of losses to the national economy, resulting in the ``Korea discount''? And how can Korea expect to ensure national harmony when the law is lenient for the moneyed and powerful, but strict for the have-nots and powerless, such as union leaders jailed for illegal strikes?
It's long that the people have satirized the nation's judicial system, saying, ``Guilty are the moneyless, guiltless are the moneyed.'' A related treatise showed that out of 114 economy-related convicts who received suspended sentences in the fourth quarter of 2007, the percentage was highest among the top managers of large businesses with annual turnover of 10 billion won or more with 83 percent, followed by corporate executives with 33 percent, office workers with 19 percent, self-employed with 11 percent and jobless with 9 percent.
Presidential pardons have continued to dwindle in the United States over the past few decades and those who benefit are not economic criminals but those who challenged the law enforcement authorities due to different faiths and ideologies. In Korea, the amnesties have not declined much and the chance of benefit is bigger if one is closer to power.
Most ironical is that the pardons on corrupt people are mostly given on two national holidays related with Japanese colonial rule ― the March 1 Independence Movement Day and Aug. 15 National Liberation Day. Korea was annexed by Japan a century ago due mainly to the corruption of the upper classes, which deprived them of popular support. The two holidays should be occasions to enhance punishment of embezzlers, bribers and other corporate defrauders, not forgive them.
Are we Koreans people who never learn from history?