The Real Problem with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials

The Act on the Establishment and Operation of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials—in other words, the CIO Act—was enacted as of January 14. Along with the revision of the election law, the CIO Act was one of the most controversial issues of 2019. If we summarize the core provisions of the newly enacted law with attention to its original purpose of dispersing prosecutorial power, they are as follows. 1) The head of the CIO is appointed as one of two candidates recommended by the candidate recommendation committee. 2) CIO prosecutors are appointed upon recommendation by the personnel committee. 3) CIO prosecutors may indict high-ranking officials in the courts, the prosecution service, and the police. 4) The head of the CIO may have the duties of a CIO prosecutor handled in his or her place, or by another CIO prosecutor.

Because the personnel committee and the CIO prosecutors can be appointed and directed according to the will of the CIO chief, the most important issue is how that chief is selected. The Democratic Party claimed that it had made it impossible for the president to appoint the CIO chief at will, while the Liberty Korea Party countered that a situation could arise in which the president effectively appoints the CIO chief as he pleases. The crux of this dispute is whether, among the seven seats on the recommendation committee, the six members needed for a resolution can be aligned with the president’s wishes. Looking strictly at this issue, there is some merit to the Democratic Party’s claim that six committee members cannot easily be chosen entirely at the president’s discretion, but there is also merit to the Liberty Korea Party’s claim that there remains a meaningful possibility that six members could in practice be decided according to the president’s wishes.

But the truly important problem does not lie in how the recommendation committee is composed. Let us consider the realistic situation, as the Democratic Party argues, in which the two opposition negotiating bloc members on the committee are chosen according to the wishes of the Liberty Korea Party. The other five members seek to recommend two candidates favorable to the president. Naturally, the two Liberty Korea Party members would not agree. So new candidates are sought. Once again, the five members try to recommend candidates favorable to the president, and once again the Liberty Korea Party objects. At this point, let us recall the obvious fact that public opinion in favor of the CIO Act is currently overwhelming. If the recommendation of a CIO chief continues to be delayed because of opposition from the Liberty Korea Party, that party will be portrayed as a deeply entrenched corrupt force obstructing and indefinitely delaying the appointment of the CIO chief in order to cover up its own wrongdoing. In practical terms, the Liberty Korea Party would come under extra-legal pressure to comply with the wishes of the Democratic Party and the president.

If that happens and the CIO chief is chosen according to the wishes of the Democratic Party and the president, the CIO could launch sweeping investigations into official corruption targeting Liberty Korea Party lawmakers and conservative-leaning high-ranking officials. When such investigations are actually carried out, it does not matter how much more innocent Liberty Korea Party lawmakers may on average be than those of other parties. The targets of investigation would in effect already be narrowed to the Liberty Korea Party camp. In that case, even if there are more lawmakers in the Democratic Party than in the Liberty Korea Party who committed official corruption, those lawmakers would not, at least initially, become targets of a CIO that seeks first to investigate the Liberty Korea Party.

When such a situation arises—one in which the CIO is effectively used to eliminate political opponents—the one thing that can function as an external check is public attention. If the public sees through the institutional flaws of the CIO and realizes that it can be abused for politically targeted investigations against a particular force, then the ruling party and the president, if they were indeed seeking to abuse the CIO in that way, would no longer be able to do so. If they did, they could lose the next election.

But today, hatred of politics is far too pervasive in our country. Unfortunately, the attention of the majority seems focused not on preserving healthy parliamentary politics, but on the execution of “justice” against corrupt high-ranking officials. The sight of the Democratic Party purging Liberty Korea Party lawmakers one by one would be consumed like a kind of national sport—just as happened during the process that led to President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment. It is also entirely possible for someone who has in fact committed no wrongdoing to become the target of an investigation and be branded a criminal merely because there are “allegations.”

In truth, the question of who gets to decide the CIO chief was never the real issue. Regardless of how the CIO is structured, the institution itself already has the potential to be abused to eliminate political opponents. That is why the establishment of the CIO was bound to amount not to a dispersal of prosecutorial power, but merely to a “dispersion of prosecutorial functions.” The prosecution, once called a “dog of power,” has simply become two. Will establishing the CIO magically eradicate corruption that has never been fully rooted out until now? On the contrary, it is likely to become a useful tool for selectively highlighting the corruption of political rivals while neatly burying the corruption of the other side beneath the fury of public opinion. The politics of retaliation that has continued since President Lee Myung-bak will only deepen, and parliamentary politics may lose its ability to function normally.

The CIO Act has already been passed. A new National Assembly will be formed through this year’s general election, and because the CIO Act takes effect on July 15, it will likely be impossible, at least until next year, to revise or repeal it. In this situation, what matters is the role of citizens in seeing through the CIO’s flaws and rigorously monitoring those who seek to exploit them. If people stop at cheering the sight of high-ranking officials being summoned by prosecutors on the assumption that all politicians are the same, then no one may remain in the National Assembly who truly stands with the people and practices politics on their behalf. And in that way, our rights and freedoms may gradually disappear.

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Original title: 공수처에 관한 진짜 문제

Author: Young-jun Kim

Date: 2020-01-17

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=free_opinion&pn=16&idx=22298