A fight against corruption has never failed to make it to the top of each presidential candidate’s list of election promises.
Rep. Park Geun-hye, the presidential nominee of the ruling Saenuri Party, has recently unveiled an anti-corruption proposal, focused on all the president’s men and women. The main opposition Democratic United Party, which nominated Rep. Moon Jae-in as its presidential candidate Sunday, is reportedly working on a similar anti-corruption plan. Moon said earlier that corruption would be one of the crucial issues for the next administration as it is now.
President Lee Myung-bak and his predecessors promised to fight corruption when they were campaigning. They reaffirmed their commitments again and again during their presidencies. Still, their presidencies were bedeviled with high-profile cases of corruption ― those involving their family members, relatives and members of their inner circles.
One of the ideas that has long gained currency in the campaign against corruption but has never been implemented is to establish an autonomous office empowered to investigate cases involving those close to the president and take action against them when they are suspected of corruption.
Park renewed the idea when she recently proposed to set up an office to keep under surveillance the director of the National Intelligence Service, the chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection, the prosecutor-general, cabinet members and others appointed to powerful public offices as well as members of the president’s family and his or her relatives.
The special investigator, appointed to the office for a three-year term by the president on a recommendation by the National Assembly, would be empowered to look into bank accounts held by those suspected of corruption and their communications, conduct searches of their homes and offices and refer the cases to the prosecutors’ office for criminal charges.
If she is earnest in her desire to establish a special surveillance office, she will push for legislation prior to the December election. Otherwise her sincerity will be called into question, as was the case with former presidents that made similar promises, only to renege on them in the face of strong opposition from the prosecutors’ office or for other reasons.
The opposition would not have any objection to negotiations for an early passage of such a bill, given that it has long championed the establishment of a more powerful office ― one authorized to prosecute offenders on its own.
