Let checks and balances work

By Park Yoon-bae

People once again are asking a tricky question: Why have almost all South Korean presidents been involved in an influence-peddling and graft scandal while in office or after retirement?

This question has continued to haunt the country. Now the public wonders how many more presidents will follow in the footsteps of their disgraced predecessors.

The latest scandal surrounding President Park Geun-hye and her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil has derailed the country’s efforts to root out corruption and create a clean, transparent and fair society.

It is all the more surprising that the scandal erupted despite her pledges to realize clean politics. Park once said she had no reason to accept bribes or exercise influence for personal gain because she has no spouse or children.

She also declared a war on corruption after the ferry Sewol sank in April 2014, killing 304 people, mostly high school students on a field trip to Jeju Island. She vowed to eliminate the “accumulated evil” of Korea, believing that the root cause of the shipwreck was corrupt ties between the ship operator, safety regulators and bureaucrats.

Park also stressed the importance of the anti-graft law, better known as the Kim Young-ran Act, which took effect in September. She said that Korea can accelerate its economic growth if it builds a clean and transparent society.

No doubt she only paid lip service. To be more correct, she lied to the nation and betrayed the people by herself being deeply implicated in the scandal. Much to the dismay of the public, she has become Korea’s first sitting president to be named a criminal suspect and accomplice of Choi, who was indicted for allegedly meddling in state affairs and extorting funds from major conglomerates.

Park is now hiding behind one of her presidential privileges ― immunity from prosecution, except in the case of insurrection or treason. She is only engrossed in defending herself in the face of an independent counsel’s probe and a trial at the Constitutional Court following her parliamentary impeachment.

She even claims that she committed no serious crimes, dismissing all the allegations about her five constitutional violations and eight legal offenses. This shows she is just trying to shirk responsibility for her alleged wrongdoings.

Judging from what she has done so far to deal with the scandal, Park apparently lacks moral and political integrity that is required for the chief executive.

The Park and Choi scandal is a classic example of corrupt political leadership that collects funds from conglomerates in return for business favors. It represents a culmination of abuse of power and corruption. Furthermore, it has led to the destruction of hard-earned democracy.

Pundits, scholars and politicians put the blame on the “imperial” presidency under which a president wields unbridled power like an emperor.

Therefore, it is important to establish a governance structure to ensure a president does not exercise power beyond the constitutional limits. One solution is to revise the Constitution to prevent the concentration of absolute power in the hands of a president.

But a constitutional change may not be a cure-all for the problem because lawmakers of rival parties want to amend the basic charter to maximize their partisan interests rather than checking the administration to better serve the people and the country.

Given a tight political timetable for the next presidential election after the impeachment trial of Park, there is a high possibility that a constitutional amendment will be delayed until after a new government is installed.

Against this backdrop, it is necessary to let the democratic system of checks and balances work better to prevent abuse of power.

I believe that if such a system had been firmly put in place, President Park could have avoided the scandal and her impeachment. But regrettably, she has done the opposite, bringing disgrace to herself and political turmoil to the nation.

Apparently she must have thought that checks and balances stand in the way of exercising her executive power. That’s why she had refused to recognize the National Assembly as a partner institution, whose support is indispensible for carrying out state affairs.

Checks and balances are based on the separation of the three branches of government ― the executive, the legislative and the judicial. These three should check each other’s power and maintain balance between them to make sure that power is not abused while each plays its own function independently and harmoniously.

What’s most important is to push for political reform and drastic social transformation to eliminate the embedded causes of corruption and power abuse.

Achieving this reform and structural change is easier said than done. But the nation can never move forward to usher in genuine democracy without such an effort.

Now I want to see the people burn the candles of hope, instead of anger, frustration and protest.