[Editorial] Let prosecution probe

From this year, the range of investigation by the prosecution was reduced to six categories of serious crimes under related laws revised early last year to reset the relationship between the prosecution and the police. The six fields are economy, corruption, civil servants, elections, defense contracts and disasters. Though a little more than two months into the new system, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea is moving to strip the prosecution of all of its remaining investigation power. The

March 4, 2021

[Editorial] Joint posture

South Korea and the US have not yet announced exactly when and how they would be conducting their joint military exercise planned for this month. The allies’ combined springtime drill is expected to kick off in the second week of March for about a 10-day run. But Seoul’s Defense Ministry said Thursday the schedule and other details of the planned exercise had yet to be finalized. A ministry spokesperson said South Korea and the US were holding close discussions on them taking into c

March 3, 2021

[Editorial] Bad precedent

The National Assembly passed a secial law last Friday for the construction of a new airport on Gadeokdo, an island under the jurisdiction of Busan. The point of the special law is to waive a preliminary feasibility study. In 2016, a French company specializing in airport architecture and engineering evaluated Gadeokdo as the least fit among three candidate sites of a new airport to cover the southeastern region of Korea. It cited construction engineering difficulties, excessive construction co

March 2, 2021

[Editorial] Tax populism

A senior lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea said during a parliamentary session last month that the issue of tax hikes should now be put to public debate. Following the suggestion, other party legislators have put forward numerous ideas on how to increase taxes. It was only a matter of time for the sensitive issue to come to the fore, given President Moon Jae-in’s administration has indulged in excessive fiscal expenditure since it assumed office in 2017 to offset the negati

March 1, 2021

[Editorial] Obvious statement

Board of Audit and Inspection Chairman Choe Jae-hyeong said public officials must observe legal procedures, even when carrying out a presidential election pledge. He stated the obvious, but his words sound fresh, considering that the presidential office, the government and the ruling party have often behaved unreasonably when it comes to the president’s campaign promises. In a session of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly on Monday, Choe said it is not right

Feb. 26, 2021

[Editorial] Duty posture

The results of a probe into the military’s latest failure to promptly spot a North Korean defector have once again revealed lax discipline in South Korea’s armed forces. The defector, a civilian in his 20s, was caught on military surveillance cameras on the South’s eastern coast 10 times after he swam ashore last week. But soldiers on guard duty failed to notice the first eight of these scenes even though alarm bells rang on two occasions, according to the inquiry conducted by

Feb. 25, 2021

[Editorial] Remove distrust

The nation’s first COVID-19 vaccinations scheduled to start Friday is stirring concerns as well as expectations.　 The vaccines to be injected on the day are products developed jointly by AstraZeneca, a global biopharmaceutical company, and the University of Oxford in England.　 Patients and workers aged under 65 at sanatoriums, nursing hospitals, and other high-risk facilities will receive the first batch of the vaccine. The inoculation of seniors aged 65 and older will be put on hold ami

Feb. 24, 2021

[Editorial] Shift in stance

Seoul’s Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong said last week that South Korea and Japan could seek help from the US, their shared ally, if it was needed to settle their protracted discord over historical issues. His remarks, made in a parliamentary session, seemed to reflect Seoul’s frustration at Tokyo’s adamant stance amid Washington’s increasing calls for improved ties between them, which are essential to the progress of trilateral cooperation. South Korean President Moon

Feb. 23, 2021

[Editorial] Relief populism

President Moon Jae-in said Friday that the government should consider distributing “morale-boosting” or “consolation” money to all the nation’s people once the coronavirus crisis ends. Moon raised this idea in a meeting with the leaders of the Democratic Party of Korea in response to a suggestion that COVID-19 relief be provided to the whole nation. His remarks came as the party and the government were still discussing the fourth round of relief payments. They ag

Feb. 22, 2021

[Editorial] Hollow pledge

At a weekly Cabinet meeting Tuesday, President Moon Jae-in called for all-out efforts to tackle the country’s worsening unemployment problem. He urged Cabinet members to take the labor market situation seriously and seek extraordinary measures in an urgent manner to turn it around soon. What gave him a sense of urgency was the bleak job data for January, which he described as shocking. According to data released last week by Statistics Korea, the country lost nearly 1 million jobs last m

Feb. 19, 2021

[Editorial] Uproot bullying in sports

Four professional volleyball players were suspended for past bullying after their former middle and high school teammates spoke out. They were also excluded from the national teams. Twin sisters Lee Jae-yeong and Lee Da-yeong of the Heungkuk Life Pink Spiders admitted to allegations of physical, verbal and emotional abuse raised by an online poster claiming to be a former middle school teammate. This news was shocking, as the Lees are popular players who led the South Korean women’s volle

Feb. 18, 2021

[Editorial] Key partnership

Seoul’s top national security officials agreed during their meeting last week to step up efforts to improve South Korea-Japan relations that have long been strained by disputes over the history of the two countries. Their agreement follows President Moon Jae-in’s suggestion last month that his government would handle pending issues with Tokyo in a more flexible manner to forge a forward-looking bilateral partnership. Ties between the two nations have sunken to one of its lowest ebbs

Feb. 17, 2021

[Editorial] Do not shackle media

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea said last Tuesday that it would include major news organizations and portal sites such as Naver and Google in the media subject to its bill to award punitive damages to a prevailing plaintiff in a libel suit. Five days earlier, the party had decided to amend the information and communications act to allow the court to impose up to treble damages on YouTube channels and other one-person media as punishment for defamation. It excluded established news organiza

Feb. 16, 2021

[Editorial] Worsening unemployment

Employment data released last week was embarrassing for President Moon Jae-in’s administration, which has vowed to put its top policy priority on job creation. The number of employed people in the country fell by 982,000 from a year earlier to 25.8 million last month, according to the data from Statistics Korea. It marked the steepest on-year decline since December 1998, when South Korea lost 1.28 million jobs in the aftermath of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. The country has report

Feb. 15, 2021

[Editorial] No illusion

A growing number of South Korean teenagers see inter-Korean relations as far from peaceful in a phenomenon that might embarrass President Moon Jae-in’s administration, which has been preoccupied with reconciliation with Pyongyang since it assumed office in May 2017. According to a survey conducted in November by the Education and Unification ministries on 68,750 students enrolled in elementary, middle and high schools nationwide, 35.2 percent of the students said relations between the two

Feb. 11, 2021

[Editorial] Choo Season 2

The new justice minister’s first reshuffle of senior prosecutors looks like the prologue of “Choo Mi-ae Season 2.” 　 Justice Minister Park Beom-kye kept the existing few loyalists to Choo, his predecessor, in key posts Sunday.　 About a year ago, Choo disbanded teams who were investigating allegations involving people around Moon under the command of Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, relegated prosecutors of the teams, sending some of them far away from Seoul, and filled impo

Feb. 10, 2021

[Editorial] Proper spending

Discord is deepening between the ruling party and the Finance Ministry over the direction of the country’s planned fourth round of coronavirus relief payments. In his parliamentary speech last week, Rep. Lee Nak-yon, chairman of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, said his party would consult with the administration on providing both targeted support for those going through more severe difficulties, such as the self-employed, and universal stimulus checks for all people. Finance Minist

Feb. 9, 2021

[Editorial] True colors of chief justice

Kim Myeong-su, chief justice of the Supreme Court, faces criticism for lying about his remarks that exposed his lack of will to protect the independence of the judiciary. Lim Seong-geun, a senior judge at the Busan High Court, revealed Wednesday that on May 22 last year when he visited Kim to ask him to accept his resignation that he had offered for a health reason, Kim told him that if he accepts his resignation, the National Assembly would not be able to act to impeach him. Kim mentioned the

Feb. 8, 2021

[Editorial] Detached from reality

South Korea’s latest defense white paper, released this week, has come under criticism for downplaying both the threats from North Korea and the importance of cooperation with Japan. The 2020 edition of the biennial report drawn up by the Defense Ministry omitted mention of North Korea as an enemy, as did the previous paper. Without referring specifically to the North, it provided an abstract definition of an enemy as a force that threatens or impinges on the sovereignty, territory, peopl

Feb. 5, 2021

[Editorial] Tell the truth

The government made a document public Monday in an attempt to address suspicions regarding its controversial plan to build a nuclear power plant in North Korea, but those suspicions are hardly subsiding. Rather, they have been amplified as a result of the government’s reckless denials and oversensitivity. Choi Jae-sung, senior presidential secretary for political affairs, said the contents of the flash memory stick that President Moon Jae-in delivered to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un d

Feb. 4, 2021