Kim Rahn is the managing editor of The Korea Times. Since joining the company in 2003, she has covered various beats including the presidential office, Seoul city government, the Bank of Korea and the tourism industry. In 2014, she won the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award for her coverage of the ordeals of migrant women in Korea.
Rights watchdog call for public servants' political rights
Members of the Korea Teachers and Education Workers Union hold a candlelit protest at Cheonggye Plaza in central Seoul to commemorate victims of the Sewol ferry tragedy in this May 2014 photo. / Korea Times file
By Kim Rahn
By Kim Rahn
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has recommended a revision to the law on public servants, concluding it is a violation of human rights to ban public servants and teachers from political expression, joining political parties and participating in election campaigns.
The recommendation follows a petition filed in April last year by the Korea Teachers and Education Workers Union, which called for a halt to the legal proceedings against teachers who took part in a 2014 joint statement criticizing the government over the sinking of the Sewol ferry. The group also claimed the law should be changed to guarantee teachers' basic political rights.
“Considering the Constitution, international conventions and precedents, there is no doubt that public servants and teachers hold basic political rights as citizens,” the commission said in a press release, Monday.
The Constitution states all people have the basic political right to express political opinions freely, join political parties voluntarily and run election campaigns freely, it said.
“We delivered the opinion to National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang that the Assembly needs to revise the law so public servants' and teachers' basic political rights can be guaranteed as long as their duty-related political neutrality is not damaged,” the commission said.
It also advised the Ministry of Personnel Management, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Education and the National Election Commission to revise relevant ordinances not to excessively restrict their political freedom as citizens.
The commission previously made similar recommendations in 2006 and 2016, and the United Nations and the International Labor Organization have called for a revision to the law. Some revision bills have been submitted to the Assembly but there has been little progress.