The former Supreme Court judge who initially wrote a controversial anticorruption bill that was passed last week said Tuesday that the law was a milder version of her original draft and could leave room for loopholes if implemented without any changes.

Kim Young-ran, who proposed the bill in 2011, also refuted growing concerns that the law may be unconstitutional and abusive for journalists and teachers, citing the need to reform the civilian sector.

The bill named after her passed the Assembly last week with over 90 percent of the attending lawmakers approving the bill. The law aims to make it illegal for civil servants, journalists and teachers to receive more than 1 million won ($910) in cash or gifts, regardless of the occasion.

The law, however, excludes elected lawmakers from being punished when they lobby for legislation, revision or abolition of the bills and if such activities represent the public value.
 

Kim strongly denounced that the exclusion of lawmakers could tantamount to them becoming “brokers.”

“It is unfortunate that the law was scaled down from its initial draft,” she said during a news conference.

“If it goes wrong, (the law) could possibly lead to elected officials like lawmakers being exploited as brokers,” she said.

The bill also failed to include measures to prevent civil servants from seeking personal benefits in the areas in which they are designated to work, she said.

“There were three elements in the original draft that bans unjust business favors, bribe receiving and the conflict of interests, but only (the first) two elements were included in the final law,” Kim said.

She also voiced concerns that the bill requires only spouses of the concerned parties to be subjected to the new rule.

Referring to past corruptive cases involving family members of former presidents, Kim urged that the bill should have required children, parents and siblings to report their relatives.

Kim said she was surprised that the bill included journalists and teachers of private education institutes. Her original draft was written only to prevent civil servants from abusing their power, she added.

Kim, however, opposed the escalating arguments that including journalists and teachers in the bill could go against the Constitution and freedom of press.

“I don’t think it violates the Constitution,” she said. Citing a recent poll that showed nearly 70 percent of respondents approving the inclusion, Kim said it is hard to see that the law violated the “equality of rights” and breached the “principle of proportionality” because she believes that the two professions carry roles that are “quasi-public.”

But Kim said the law could possibly infringe the freedom of the press and urged lawmakers to come up with a special countermeasure to prevent such things from happening.

The remark came after a local lawyers’ group last week filed an appeal to the court arguing that the bill challenges the Constitution.

The bill has arbitrarily selected the subjects for regulation, including the press, and violates the principles of equality and precision, the group said.

In the face of growing criticism for hastily passing the bill, lawmakers have hinted that they would revise the bill before it goes into effect in September 2016. The parliament also has been under criticism for sidestepping clauses that would directly impact the incumbent lawmakers.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)