South Korea’s Decades-Long War on Corruption
FPCI Chapter UI Diplomatic Outlook #7
Written by: Vianney Widoputranto (Research and Analysis Division)
Introduction
The corruption scandal that erupted in late 2016, involving the South Korean president Park Geun-hye, was arguably the biggest and worst corruption scandal in South Korean history, so much so that a majority of the Korean people demanded Park’s impeachment. Although corruption still persists in South Korea, Park’s scandal is striking as it differs from other scandals in two main aspects, namely the scope and extent of corruption. The 2016 scandal stands out as it is one of the largest cases measured by the number of people involved in it which includes the President, high ranking staff of the Presidential Office, Ministers, Public Officials, and CEOs of “the all mighty” Chaebols. This scandal is a major setback for South Korea in terms of anti-corruption reforms, but also provides South Korea with an important moment to rethink the current anti-corruption policies and institutions to manage and prevent chronic corruption problems.
The History of South Korea’s Measures in Tackling the Issues
Efforts in combating corruption in South Korea dates back to 1961 when the “Act on the Treatment of Illegal Accumulation of Wealth” was passed. This law has criminal provisions for public officials and persons in power who abuse their position and power to illegally accumulate wealth. Furthermore, in 1963, the Audit and Inspection Agency was formed which was tasked with examining state finances and government employees’ personal finances. Subsequently, in 1980, the Social Purification Council (SPC) was formed with the task of monitoring public official discipline. The follow-up to the establishment of the SPC was the enactment of the Public Service Ethics Act in 1981, which contained provisions for public officials to report their assets. In 1990, the government launched a new program called the “New Order and the New Life Movement” as a means to implement anti-corruption reforms. In 1993, the Government amended the Law on Public Service Ethics to include provisions for the publication of registered assets of public officials to the public. Then in the same year, the government issued Emergency Presidential Decree №16 concerning the Real Name Financial System which aims to eradicate the underground economy that supports illegal financial transactions and massive corruption by using pseudonyms in transactions. Although the efforts made by the South Korean government appear concrete on paper, the reality is that the anti-corruption measures in South Korea were still sporadic and only rhetorical until the early 2000s.
Until 2001, policies and legal provisions regarding the eradication of corruption continued to delegate all investigative powers towards the supreme prosecutor’s office and the police. This situation has changed due to the passage of the Anti-Corruption Act, along with the establishment of the Korean Independent Commission for Anti-Corruption. With these two bases, the systematic institutional and legal basis for a body to exclusively fight corruption is fulfilled. Before the formation of the Anti-Corruption Law and the Independent Commission, the aforementioned laws, including those specifically dealing with corruption, were delegated to the Prosecutor’s Office for implementation. The problem that arises is that the Prosecutor’s Office itself is not dedicated solely to corruption issues, and has always been considered ineffective.
The anti-corruption law and the independent commission have provided the much needed institutional foundations and agencies to deal with corruption. Due to the function of preventing corruption as stipulated in the Anti-Corruption Law is centered on the Independent Commission, the existence and performance of the Independent Commission are considered a major achievement in corruption eradication. But oddly, in 2008 this Independent Commission was merged with the Administrative Appeals Commission and the Korean Ombudsman, forming the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC). This merger raised new concerns, as the merging of three fundamentally different organizations functionally could weaken the role of the Independent Commission as a dedicated anti-corruption agency. Unlike the anti-corruption institutions in general, which usually carry out three functions namely repression of corruption, prevention of corruption, and education and public campaigning, the ACRC does not have a repressive function, namely, to conduct investigations and prosecutions. This weakens the capacity and effectiveness of the corruption eradication of the agency. Instead, the ACRC is responsible only for anti-corruption policy-making and prevention activities.
The Current State of Affairs
In January 2021, a new institution was established and tasked with carrying out ACRC duties, christened the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO). CIO itself is an independent agency of the South Korean government responsible for prosecuting crimes and investigating allegations involving high-ranking officials or direct family members of such high-ranking officials; of which the Law on which it is based, namely the Act on the Establishment and Operation of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Rank Officials, stipulates high-ranking officials as high-echelon level government officials, members of parliament, prosecutors, judges, and the President. The head of the CIO himself is appointed by the President from two candidates recommended by the nomination committee, which consists of the Minister of Justice, Minister of Court Administration, Chairman of the Korean Bar Association and four other members, of which two of the four members are recommended by the governing party and two others by the opposition party. This committee must then nominate two candidates with one candidate approved by at least 5 of the 7 total votes of the nominating committee.
One thing that stands out from the situation in South Korea is the fact that the entire anti-corruption apparatus, even before the existence of the CIO even after the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Law, was the domain of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Korea, which itself is part of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Korea. The CIO was also formed and “released” from the ministry of justice and the attorney general’s office, but the process of selecting the CIO Chair remains a political process that is far from neutral. This situation can be seen from the granting of seats to opposition parties in the nomination committee, but in the final decision, the opposition is powerless in providing recommendations. This means the committee is essentially a “rubber stamp” committee of the government’s will. This situation makes the process of eradicating corruption easily interfered with by political interests from the government and the ruling party, as can be seen from the incident of the merging of the Independent Committee into the ACRC and the formation of the CIO, where the CIO has essentially the same powers as the former Independent Committee but a narrower area of work. So, despite progress in structural terms, the practice of the eradication of corruption in South Korea is still very closely connected with the political situation of the country itself, and by extension the ruling class.
It can be seen that the procedural system of eradicating corruption in South Korea has experienced many ups and downs and changes throughout the history of South Korea. Given how corruption has hindered the progress of democracy and how it has negatively impacted public confidence in politics and public administration in South Korea, it is urgent for the Korean government to change the current state of the corruption problem. While effective corruption prevention is not an easy task, as shown by current anti-corruption measures that have been proven to not solve the long-standing corruption problem, a solution can be achieved via a more comprehensive and focused reform strategy that dismantles the political-economic environment that allows entrenched corruption and special interests to persist. If effective corruption control and prevention can be achieved by instituting anti-corruption agencies, independent and impartial zero-tolerance law enforcement is essential. Therefore, anti-corruption reform should be carried out by removing political obstacles that prevent law enforcement officials from being independent and impartial to further the progress of democratization in the Korean Peninsula.
References can be accessed through bit.ly/DipLook-KoreanCorruption-References
