A recent OECD report grabbed headlines in the Korean media as it highlighted Koreans’ low confidence in the country’ public institutions, including the national government and the judiciary.

The OECD Government at a Glance 2015 report, based on a survey of 1,000 people in each member state, found that only 34 percent of Koreans trusted the national government. This is hardly surprising, considering the rampant corruption and bureaucratic red tape that characterizes the work of government employees.

Likewise, Koreans’ confidence in the judicial system -- at 29 percent -- was much lower than the average of the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Then one should quite naturally ask the question: What about the executive branch? Fortunately for lawmakers, the report did not deal with the parliament. But do we really need public surveys to know where the level of public confidence in our parliament stands?

You need look no further than the recent string of scandals involving members of the National Assembly -- an amalgam of irregularities like sexual assault, graft and improper solicitation and abuse of power.

As always, corruption tops the list of misdeeds committed by our representatives. Most recently, Rep. Park Ki-choon of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy was taken into custody Wednesday on charges of taking cash, luxury watches -- each worth tens of thousands of dollars -- and handbags from a property developer.

Rep. Sim Hag-bong of the Saenuri Party is now under investigation prompted by a woman’s allegation that he raped her. The woman dropped her initial allegation, but the case stirred a public uproar because the lawmaker was having an extramarital affair at a hotel on a day when his parliamentary committee was in session.

Then came the case of Rep. Yoon Hu-duk of the NPAD and Rep. Kim Tae-won of the Saenuri Party, who apparently abused their influence to help their children -- both lawyers -- land a job.

Yoon already admitted that he called the CEO of LG Display regarding his daughter’s application to join the firm in 2013. It is comical that he insisted that he called the CEO only to let him know about his daughter’s application and that he did not ask for a favor. The firm is located in Paju, which the lawmaker represents, and one can easily imagine why it decided to select two candidates after initially planning to hire only one.

Rep. Kim’s case came to the fore as 572 legal professionals invoked their right under the Freedom of Information Act to demand the Korea Government Legal Service disclose records regarding hiring of Kim’s son in 2013.

Kim admitted that he had a personal relationship with the then head of the KGLS, a public law firm providing legal services for government offices, but insisted that he did not even know his son had applied for the job. We’ll soon know whether he is telling the truth.

What frustrates us is that cases like these come time and again, but most of those involved in irregularities and misdeeds are allowed to retain their parliamentary seats if they avoid criminal punishment.

It begs serious thought about how we can raise the ethical bar for lawmakers. One of the easiest and most effective ways could be making the National Assembly Special Committee on Ethics an authoritative, effective in-house watchdog.

Now the committee is nothing but a paper tiger. There have been 25 cases sent to the committee by the current 19th Assembly, including the sexual scandal involving Sim, but it has not taken any action on a single case. During the 18th Assembly (2008-2012), the committee took action only on one of the 54 cases it was asked to review.

The biggest problem with the committee is that it is made up of only lawmakers: now it consists of eight from the ruling party, six from the NPAD and one from the Justice Party. It is easy to imagine that the committee members will not be very aggressive in probing their colleagues.

Opening the committee to independent outside figures would be the first step to reforming the ethics body and restore public confidence in the legislature.