ed Crackdown on draft dodgers

The government will map out effective measures to discipline young men who attempt to evade mandatory military service by giving up their Korean citizenship.

A study commissioned by the Military Manpower Administration (MMA) last month envisions even levying heavier taxes on draft dodgers. Given the mounting criticism that abandoning citizenship has been abused as a means of avoiding conscription, the agency’s move is belated but welcome.

The study proposes changing a clause in the military service law, which stipulates that a person who obtains foreign citizenship even after being born here loses his Korean citizenship automatically. The change is needed to prevent young people from trying to obtain foreign citizenship to avoid enlistment.

Other measures proposed by the MMA include imposing promotion-related disadvantages on high-ranking public servants if their sons abandon their citizenship with the purpose of evading military service.

Also, deliberate draft dodgers might face heavier inheritance and gift taxes. And the agency will make it harder for those who give up citizenship to recover it.

All these proposed measures are quite necessary, considering that penalties have been moderate against those who dodged their enlistment by changing citizenship. In fact, draft-dodgers have faced disadvantages only when seeking jobs at Korean companies or obtaining approval to operate businesses here.

Abandoning one’s citizenship to avoid the draft is nothing short of criminal in Korea, the world’s only divided country. But due to loopholes in our legal system, more than 16,000 people dodged military service by giving up their citizenship from 2011 through July last year, and the number has increased year after year.

It is certainly an evil practice that should be uprooted whatever may happen. This is all the more so, given that most of the draft dodgers come from well-to-do families.

There is a long way to go, though, before actual legislation is realized.

First and foremost, prudent judiciary review will be necessary to confirm if the legislation may be in conflict with existing laws. For example, giving disadvantages to high-ranking officials when their sons avoid conscription might be in violation of the Constitution. There is also a strong need to scrutinize problems in the tax laws over the imposition of inheritance and gift taxes.

That’s why all related government agencies, including the Justice Ministry and the National Tax Service, should cooperate actively and closely. There is no question that cracking down on those who evade their military duty by abandoning their citizenship is essential to fulfilling social justice.