[Editorial] Ill-considered move

Not many are better qualified than Ahn Dae-hee, chairman of the ruling Saenuri Party’s newly established special committee on political reform, to flesh out its presidential nominee’s promise to aggressively fight political corruption, ranging from illegal election funding to bribery among those in power.

His credentials include a 2003 criminal investigation he led as a senior prosecutor. His team successfully dealt with the provision of a vanload of cash and other illegal corporate contributions to the 2002 presidential candidate of the ruling party’s predecessor, the Grand National Party.

Nevertheless, Ahn, a retired Supreme Court justice, made an ill-advised move earlier in the week when he accepted a request from Rep. Park Geun-hye, the presidential nominee of the ruling party, that he head a special committee on political reform. He was the first former justice to move to a political party.

Ahn took the party post 48 days after he retired as a Supreme Court justice. Rep. Park Jie-won, floor leader of the main opposition Democratic United Party, denounced him for joining the ruling party “before the ink dried (on his paper of) retirement as a justice.”

But should it be condoned if he took a similar post, for instance, one or two years after his retirement? No, it should not. It is not a matter of the interval between a justice’s retirement and his new employment but a matter of propriety.

During the past 10 years, four other retired justices have been appointed to the post of prime minister and other top administration posts. One of the latest cases involved Kim Hwang-sik, who retired as justice in July 2008. He was appointed chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection in September 2008 and prime minister in October 2010.

An appropriate question to ask is: If a sitting justice is considering a post-retirement appointment to a top post of the ruling party or the administration, can he or she be expected to remain neutral when deliberating on politically sensitive cases?

There is little room for maneuver when addressing the issue, given that a statutory ban on such employment is out of the question because it would breach the constitutional right to occupation. Nor is it possible to extend the six-year constitutional term in office for justices unless the basic law is rewritten.

In a nutshell, it is basically up to individual choice whether or not a retired justice will continue to maintain a high level of integrity and, by doing so, help keep up the authority of the highest court.