Guilt by association
The government makes correct decision to protect human rights
The Justice Ministry has made a belated but correct decision to protect the Constitution. Article 13 of the basic law stipulates that no citizen shall suffer unfavorable treatment on account of an act, not of his own, but of a relative.
Last week, it barred law enforcement authorities, including the prosecution, from making public or using as court evidence criminal records of public security law violations of family members when a person is indicted for breaking the same law.
The announcement came in response to a complaint by a woman activist indicted for participating in a candlelight vigil against imports of American beef in 2008. In indicting her, the prosecution said that her husband, a former legislator, and her father also violated the same law. The prosecution submitted the family's records to the court as evidence.
The prosecution wrongly wanted the court to mete out an additional penalty to her by associating her with the history of her husband and father. This is a clear violation of article 13 of the Constitution. Opposition lawmakers took issue with this last October. Justice Minister Lee Kwi-nam accepted the complaint and revised the regulations.
From now on, state agencies will be prohibited from using their family's criminal records to penalize an individual. The court will not accept the information as evidence. Government agencies will, however, will share information on the family's crime records.
Authoritarian President Chun Doo-hwan's regime introduced the rules to suppress dissidents in 1981. The regulations have not been invoked since then but the prosecution abused the outdated rules to penalize the woman.
It is the right decision as the government has removed regulations running counter to the Constitution. The government should have scrapped the codes long before the issue came to light.
The abuse of the family criminal records is a clear association fallacy. Guilt by association is an appeal to the emotions. Can you say all Muslims are bad because Al Qaida consists of Muslims? It is a misguided and hasty generalization to classify a crime of an individual as an inherent crime of the family members. Despite family ties, the Constitution protects the integrity of individual family members. A father's crime should not burden his children.
Under the authoritarian regimes of Park Chung-hee and Chun, you could not get employment in government posts if your family members were linked to North Korea. They encountered visible and invisible disadvantages, including restrictions on travelling abroad. This practice was in fact exploited mostly to stifle dissidents and activists who opposed the regime.
Since the launch of the Lee Myung-bak administration, international watchdog agencies, including Amnesty International, have been critical of the human rights situation in Korea. The government should heed the criticisms. A humble respect for the advice is necessary not only for social cohesion but also to not tarnish the image of the country.