The latest episode in corrupt prosecutors illustrates Korea is a developed country with stunted and undeveloped public institutions. The sponsorship scandal also called into question the current method of choosing prosecutors. It also raised the question on how to approach the issue of instilling integrity in its law enforcement and judiciary when politics and personal connections rule.
These are knotty questions for a nation such as Korea, which can no longer be called a developing country. When a country has corrupt public servants, especially prosecutors whose main duty is to fight the corruption itself, the problem is particularly acute. Businessmen do this for effectively conducting business.
It is doubtful whether this anachronistic malpractice will stop unless either the penalties are very high or it no longer makes any difference to the ability to do business.
The bombshell revelation came at a critical time for the governing party. The opposition parties and liberal NGOs are to politicize the scandal ahead of the local elections on June 2. An NGO plans to file a criminal lawsuit against the 57 former and current blacklisted prosecutors.
They were systematically entertained and provided with sexual services from a Busan-based CEO of a construction company for the past 25 years.
An NGO will ask the government auditing agency to look into the case. Public anger has reached its peak because this is not the first incidence of their corruption.
Last year, the prosecutor-general nominee retired as a result of his shady deals in buying a luxurious home in Seoul. A senior prosecutor resigned upon revelation that he received $10,000 from a CEO. From 1997 to 1999, several senior prosecutors had to quit for taking bribery. None of them were convicted. The whistle-blower threatened to file a civil lawsuit to retrieve the 10 billion won he involuntarily spent for the red-carpet treatment of the investigators.
He listed the types of graft, including providing cash during farewells and holidays, paying prostitutes, covering get-together dinner expenses and giving cash of sometimes one million won to a drunken prosecutor taking a taxi home. Justice Minister Lee Kwi-nam and Prosecutor General Kim Joon-kyu vowed to take drastic measures.
The blacklisted must get the benefit of the doubt until completion of the investigation. Once confirmed, they must face criminal punishment although many of their crimes may have passed the statue of limitations.
The prosecution has launched a fact-finding panel; two-thirds of its members are outsiders. This is not enough. The appointment of a high-profile, independent leader whose integrity is beyond doubt to clean house, must be named.
The nation needs to institutionalize a mechanism to make the prosecution more transparent, scientific, non-political and corruption-free.
A move to uproot corruption will be short-lived without instituting such a solid system. Naming a foreigner as the auditor of the prosecution may be considered. Reform is quite an abstract terminology. Specific institutional steps must be taken for the protection of honest prosecutors. Korea will be globally respected as a truly developed country only when she has corruption-free, enforcement agencies.