[Editorial] Extreme nepotism

Koreans are accustomed to encountering misdeeds committed by public officials — both elected and appointed. But the seemingly endless cases of alleged nepotism involving Rep. Seo Yeong-gyo certainly goes beyond a tolerable level.

In short, Seo, a two-term lawmaker from The Minjoo Party of Korea, is quite good at misusing her public office to provide benefits to her own family members.  

She has been involved in a long list of cases of notorious nepotism. Three years ago, the lawmaker hired her own daughter — then a college student — as an intern at her National Assembly office for five months. Her salary totaling 5.8 million won ($5,000) — which came from taxpayers’ money — went into Seo’s political fund.

Last year, she hired her younger brother as an assistant. His job included driving Seo’s car and part of his salary also went into her political fund.

Then there is more disturbing news: Channel-A television reported this week that in 2012, Seo’s husband — a lawyer — joined her when she had dinner with about 10 senior officials of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office.

At that time, Seo was a member of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee and the parliamentary panel was conducting the annual audit of the prosecution. The TV report said that Seo brought her husband to a similar dinner with senior judges at the Busan High Court.

It is obvious that Seo wanted to help her husband form personal ties with senior prosecutors and judges. We know that such ties sometimes result in corruption cases involving defense counsels and members of the prosecution and the court.

One need not look further than the current Jung Woon-ho bribery scandal, in which the businessman gave astronomical amounts of money to his defense counsels to buy influence from incumbent prosecutors and judges.

Seo and the Minjoo Party should clarify their positions on this and other cases of extreme nepotism.