By Michael Breen
Lee Kwi-nam, the minister of justice, went to a prison for serial killers, murderers and rapists this week to highlight a possible resurrection of the death penalty.
``I am considering setting up an execution facility at this prison," Lee told reporters when he visited Cheongsong Prison in North Gyeongsang Province, which keeps the country's most violent offenders. The last executions in Korea were in 1997, when 23 death row inmates were hung.
``The purpose of such a facility is to carry out the death sentence," he said in emphasis. (That was the quote in this newspaper. In Yonhap News, the point was rendered slightly differently: ``This would be with the assumption that there will be actual executions.")
But, he immediately diluted this assertion, saying the issue is being reviewed ``with caution."
It is not clear whether this delicate dance of words represents PR or policy, whether it signals the beginning of the end of the 13-year-old moratorium on the death penalty or whether it is a gesture to public sentiment which is inflamed after the rape and murder of a schoolgirl by a convicted rapist in Busan.
Right now, emotions are running high and in favor of executing psychopaths. In the wake of the outrage over the murder in Busan, the ruling Grand National Party's policy think-tank, the Yeouido Institute, says that 80 percent of citizens polled favor the death penalty.
The government of President Lee Myung-bak certainly cannot ignore such emotion and it is possible that Minister Lee (no relation) simply wanted to avoid criticism by showing that at least he is thinking about the issue. Such public steps by politicians are common in all democracies, but in Korea, public emotion in a sense is seen as a moral force to be obeyed. Accordingly, there is a deeper aversion to such criticism.
In addition, President Lee needs to remain in step with his own promise to be tough on serious crimes. Some GNP lawmakers are calling for a return to executions, which were put on hold by former president Kim Dae-jung and his successor, Roh Moo-hyun.
Government, however, must act in the national interest and this is invariably at odds with the public opinion of the day. Indeed, the government needs to factor in how public opinion itself shifts. Once the Busan killer is convicted and fades from public view, those statistics will no doubt settle as people consider the arguments against the death penalty made by human rights groups.
Government also needs to note the country's role in the world. The global trend is to phase out execution and replace this ultimate punishment with life sentences without parole.
Of the 920 people legally executed in South Korea since its founding in 1948, how many were truly a danger to society? The ghost of Cho Bong-am, a leading politician who was executed for proposing North-South talks, no longer stalks Korea's prisons because the country is now a democracy and respects human rights. But, of the 57 inmates on death row today, could one be innocent?
Kim Dae-jung, who introduced the moratorium in 1998, had himself been sentenced to death for opposing the military dictatorship and was later pardoned. Amnesty International, the human rights body which campaigns for global abolition, categorizes Korea in a group of 95 countries that have ``virtually abolished capital punishment," which means no executions for 10 years even though capital punishment remains on the books. Fifty-eight nations, including the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia, still actively enforce the death penalty.
This debate ultimately comes down to a moral question. Do we wish to live in a society with an institutionalized means of taking the life of some of its citizens when, first, the system that convicts them is flawed and, second, when we have other ways to protect ourselves from them?
Those are the questions the government needs to hear about and discuss. Whether Minister Lee contributing to this debate, signaling an imminent policy change, or gesturing, the lack of clarity ― hinting cautiously at being resolute ― shows a greater sensitivity to public relations than the moral issues around capital punishment.
While understandable coming from the minister of justice, who has to personally sign off on each execution, we need leaders to lead public debate, not bounce like a pinball off each burst of public sentiment.
Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.
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