Under President Park Geun-hye’s prodding, government officials have begun discussing ways to make the presidential special pardons less susceptible to abuse.
Choo Kyung-ho, policy coordination minister at the Prime Minister’s Office, presided over a meeting of senior officials from relevant ministries last week. Choo said that the meeting’s participants agreed to work out measures to make special pardons fairer and more transparent by next month.
The government move was prompted by controversy over pardons for Sung Woan-jong, the late chairman of a construction firm whose allegations of illegal political donations to Park’s associates are rocking the political community.
Sung was pardoned twice in 2005 and 2007, both by then-President Roh Moo-hyun. Korean presidents used to be too generous in exercising their right to grant amnesties, especially to their associates, politicians and business tycoons, but it is quite rare for a man to be given the privilege twice by the same president.
It is easy to imagine that Sung used his wide connections and payoffs to gain the pardons. It is not wrong, therefore, that Park called for a probe on how the decisions to pardon him were reached. She also asked the government to work out ways to make sure there will be no similar cases in future.
Park’s active intervention in the issue ― as her critics claim ― may be aimed at deflecting the negative public sentiment toward her administration amid the Sung scandal. Besides, Park may well want to boast one of the few good things she has done ― unlike her predecessors, she has refrained from granting special pardons.
Park, who took office more than two years ago, granted special pardons only once, in January last year. This compares with nine special pardons granted by Kim Young-sam, eight each by Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun and seven by Lee Myung-bak.
So it is understandable for Park to play up the issue. Nevertheless, one cannot but get the impression that government officials are making too much haste in following up on Park’s instruction to overhaul the special pardon system.
There have already been many proposals to curb the president’s right to grant pardons, including 11 bills written during the current National Assembly.
The proposals include those making the heads of conglomerates, relatives of the president and senior officials appointed by the president ineligible for the special pardons and for putting pardons to judicial review. Some also call for making the Pardons Review Committee, now headed by the justice minister, an independent institution. There are many more.
The best way to sort the gems from the pebbles and to pool the best wisdom could be forming an ad-hoc panel of government officials, academics, legal professionals and other civilians. Equally important is to give the panel enough time to come up with the best possible proposal.
