Lawmakers ruled out from anti-graft law

By Rachel Lee

After the Constitutional Court upheld the controversial anti-graft law, Thursday, calls are growing that the law should be revised so that it can also be applied to lawmakers and civic groups.

Lawmakers are facing criticism that they excluded themselves from the scope of the law when they enacted it in March last year.

The act, proposed by former Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission Chief Kim Young-ran, will make 4 million public servants, journalists and private school teachers and their spouses subject to regulations that ban them from being given meals and gifts exceeding designated price limits.

According to the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission and the National Assembly Secretariat, gifts and meals for lawmakers and public officials as long as they are related to legislative activities are among exceptions to the law.

“The intent of the new law is that the government and other related organizations should not be restrained from their role of conveying the problems of people in this country,” a National Assembly Secretariat official said.

Several lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties have called for amendments following the ruling.

Rep. Kang Hyo-sang of the ruling Saenuri Party submitted revisions earlier this month to include lawmakers.

“The law failed to accord with the people’s wish to eradicate corruption since it excludes lawmakers,” Kang said. “This issue must be sorted out before the law goes into effect.”

Rep. Lee Sang-min of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea said that it was not fair to exclude lawmakers because they are not the only ones to face problems when the new law is applied to them.

“The same standards should be applied to everyone,” Lee said.

Lee added that the bill should also include civic groups, the defense industry, banks and other financial institutions together with journalists and private school teachers who are on the target list for their substantial influence on society.

Ahn Cheol-soo, a former co-leader of the minor opposition People’s Party, also calls for inclusion of lawmakers on the list and said he will soon submit revisions to the National Assembly.

However, there are growing concerns over setting up clear criteria for judging the legality of solicitation since bribery is prohibited under the Criminal Code, making it ambiguous to differentiate one from the other.

In 2014, former lawmaker Kim Jae-yun of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), the predecessor of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, was sentenced to four years in prison for taking 50 million won in bribes from the head of a Seoul vocational school. Former lawmaker Shin Hak-young of the NPAD was also charged with bribery.