Uri Party chairman Moon Hee Sang said Monday that he will propose to the president a mass pardon on the occasion of Liberation Day (August 15). The justification for that would be facilitating a turning point in national unity on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Liberation. If the pardon move is truly for the sake of national reconciliation then it is something to be welcomed. But it must not be about giving pardons to politicians by slipping them in with a large number of regular individuals.
Moon says the main category of those to be included would be "livelihood offenders," common people (seomin) who broke the law trying to make a living and executives at mid-sized companies who committed only less serious financial crimes. That can be seen as a positive move at this time of economic difficulty. The problem is the part where he talks about how "politicians convicted of involvement in illegal campaign funds must not be exempted from an amnesty move." The membership of the National Assembly already considers amnesty for those politicians to be a given. That interpretation is also made possible by the fact Moon proposed a mass pardon at the same press conference where he proposed to the opposition party the creation of a coalition government.
It would be an abuse of the presidential authority to grant pardons to give them to politicians who took illegal campaign funds. It would be nothing new in Korean political history to give politicians or big business executives who committed illegal acts pardons only shortly after their sentences have been finally determined, and the justification has always been "national unity." The result is that people expect to be able to receive amnesty, to the point now where criminal punishment barely functions to prevent illegality and corruption. It has gotten to the point where the people do not take the law seriously.
The public has to be able to agree that a mass pardon is acceptable, just like Moon said. It was only the end of last year that the trials for politicians who took illegal campaign funds came to an end. Among the politicians who are being discussed for possible inclusion there are some who were aides to the president. If the president pardons them, too, it will be trampling on the principle of the rule of law. Even without this latest development there continue to be calls for the law to be revised so that the president's ability to grant pardons is not misused. If pardons are to be given like they should be given, then the law on pardons should be rectified.
The Hankyoreh, 12 July 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
Amend Law on Pardons Before \'Mass Pardon\' |
