ED Groupthink and obedience
Park Yong-soo, vice minister of the Ministry of Personnel Management, explains the key elements of the revised State Public Officials Act during a news conference at Government Complex Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
Duty of "disobedience" reform is long overdue
Korea will scrap a decades-old rule that required government employees to follow the orders of senior management, even when those directives were illegal.
The Ministry of Personnel Management said Tuesday that the “duty of obedience” stipulated in the State Public Officials Act will be removed, and civil servants will instead be encouraged to challenge questionable or unlawful orders.
Article 57 of the act had mandated that government employees obey instructions from their superiors, without specifying whether those orders had to be legal. The ministry said this will now be clarified to state that employees should perform their duties "under the guidance" of their superiors, emphasizing cooperation rather than unconditional obedience. It added that civil servants will be protected from discriminatory treatment or disciplinary action if they refuse illegal orders.
The ministry plans to submit the revised act to the National Assembly next month for review by the relevant standing committee and to pass it at a plenary session.
The duty of obedience has been in place for 76 years, since the enactment of the State Public Officials Act. Officials say the introduction of a "duty of disobedience" is intended to foster a workplace culture based on discussion and communication, and to empower employees to resist unlawful directives.
The reform is long overdue. Had it been introduced earlier, some of the nation’s most tragic chapters, such as the Dec. 3 martial law declaration, might have been prevented.
But simply codifying a duty of disobedience will not, by itself, transform the bureaucracy into a more flexible or constructive organization. Other deeply rooted problems must also be addressed to make the public sector more responsive to civil society. Groupthink, excessive red tape and institutional inertia remain pervasive. This rigid culture encourages civil servants to stay silent or turn a blind eye to wrongdoing — a problem that must be thoroughly overhauled.
Former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law on Dec. 3 prompted this administration to introduce the duty of disobedience. Yoon is now facing several legal challenges on multiple charges, including insurrection and abuse of power. Former Cabinet ministers, military generals and other key officials have been summoned to testify as suspects or witnesses. Many have denied involvement in Yoon’s decision to invoke presidential authority to declare martial law.
During the Dec. 3 Cabinet meeting that preceded the decree, several testified that they opposed the plan but were unable to stop the president, who was determined to proceed. According to some former Cabinet members, Yoon insisted that “everything was set and this is not something that can be reversed now.” Recognizing his resolve, a number of ministers pleaded with him to reconsider, but their appeals were rejected.
The entire nation — along with the Cabinet members and military leadership who served under Yoon — is now paying the price for the head of state’s reckless decision.
Irregularities rooted in the duty of obedience have been common in previous governments.
A notable example is the statistical data fabrication under the Moon Jae-in administration, which revealed how collective action by compliant civil servants became a conduit for justifying flawed and ineffective housing policies. The presidential office leveraged the chain of command to pressure a state-run agency into releasing data favorable to the administration.
According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, the Moon government fabricated housing-price data 104 times between 2018 and 2022. The presidential office and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport pressured the Korea Real Estate Board (KREB) to publish edited figures that portrayed the administration’s housing policies as successful in curbing rising prices.
The KREB initially refused, reporting instead that prices had risen by 0.02 percentage points. Infuriated by the agency’s refusal, an official from the land ministry warned that continued noncompliance would result in a personnel reshuffle and significant budget cuts.
This illustrates the heavy price the nation pays when government employees remain silent — or even cooperate — with a corrupt or incapable administration.