The ruling Saenuri Party announced last week proposals to change the way the National Assembly conducts confirmation hearings for the president’s nominees for senior government posts.
The proposals, drawn up after five months of work, are highlighted by the arrangement of a closed-door session in which lawmakers question nominees about their moral and ethical qualifications. The other session about their professional competence will continue to be open to the public.
On the surface, the change seeks to protect candidates’ right to privacy. But it is really a tactic to ease the level of scrutiny on people who are required to have high moral and ethical standards.
Given the fact that many of President Park Geun-hye’s nominees ― including three for prime minister ― bowed out due to personal problems, the ruling party may be tempted to lower the bar for the vetting process.
But what happened is that many candidates, including all three prime minister-designates, withdrew their names even before the Assembly began their confirmation hearings.
In other words, many of those whose appointments fell through did so not because of findings exposed by parliamentary hearings, but because of the scrutiny from the opposition, the media and civic groups.
Considering this, we have every right to remain skeptical about the effectiveness of holding a closed-door session in protecting the nominees’ right to privacy.
One more ridiculous thing is that the ruling party also suggested that the parliament ask the media to draw up “reporting guidelines” regarding the vetting of senior government officials.
It is true that excessive competition among news outlets sometimes results in encroachments upon the human rights of nominees and their families, but stringent media scrutiny is essential for barring unqualified, unethical people from public service.
The most important thing to prevent another nomination disaster is to find the right men and women through thorough vetting, instead of naively hoping that a closed session will keep everything in the dark and the media will be cooperative and restrained.
