Why was Roh impeached? Violation of political neutrality

(UPDATE: "Sperwer" has posted some very interesting comments on the subject of bureaucrats and political neutrality. Be sure to check them out.)

As most folks know, President Roh was impeached for three things: violation of political neutrality, corruption and incompetence.

The incompetence charge is not interesting. Roh is a babo (fool) but he is a duly elected babo, so I don't see incompetence as really being impeachable.

The corruption charge is not interesting either. Either Roh knew that his campaign was raising illegal funds or he did not.

But the "violation of political neutrality charge IS interesting. So, I'll talk a little about that today.

What is the big deal about Roh campaigning for Our Open Party (OOP)?

"I want to do everything within legal boundaries to support the Uri Party." With those few words, President Roh gave opposition lawmakers the excuse they were looking for to finally impeach him. As the head-of-state and chief public official in Korea, his remark in response to a reporter's question was said to be a violation of Article 7, Section 2 of the Korean Constitution, which states: The status and political impartiality of public officials is guaranteed as prescribed by law.

The response of many commenters and Korean citizens was that it was ridiculous to expect the president to be politically neutral. After all, nobody expects Tony Blair to be neutral during British elections.

But then again, Tony Blair is not the head-of-state in Britain; the Queen is. And she is also expected to be politically neutral:

Although the law relating to elections does not specifically prohibit the Sovereign from voting in a General Election or local election, it is considered unconstitutional for the Sovereign and his or her heir to do so. As Head of State, The Queen must remain politically neutral, since her Government will be formed from whichever party can command a majority in the House of Commons.

But it is not only monarchs which face restrictions on their political activities. Some presidents also are also under the same restrictions. Consider Israel:

Of course, the president must be a national leader above the daily politics. He belongs to the people and must serve the people. He must be politically neutral.

Or Germany:

Usually chosen as candidate by the largest party in the Bundestag, the president nonetheless is expected to be nonpartisan after assuming office.

But none of those heads-of-state are popularly elected (the president of Israel is selected by the parliament and the president of Germany is determined in a federal convention). The president of Korea is elected and as such carries a political mandate independent of the General Assembly's. In that sense, Korea's president is more similar to the chief executives of the United States or France than those mentioned above.

So why does Korea put those kind of restrictions on its president? It is basically a check on the head-of-state's ability to interfer with the legislature. Modern Korean history is filled with accounts of presidents who use government power to interfer with the legislature. The president controls the flow of funds through the bureaucracy and (ultimately) the military. As such, he could easily sway the results of key legislative races.

But, in the eyes of many, the current law is too strict:

"If the president violates a traffic law in his performance of duties and we follow the literary (sic) interpretation, then he could be impeached for that. It’s nonsense"

So we come back to the original question: Does Roh's statement violate his political neutrality as a public official?

I think that to answer that question, we need to understand the dual nature of the presidency (sorry to any of my Buddhist readers out there for bringing up duality). On one hand, he is the chief executive of the national bureaucracy and head of the armed forces and there is certainly good reason to expect both institutions to remain non-partisan (with all due respect to the Democratic Labor Party's erroneous beliefs otherwise).

On the other hand, the president is the only person elected by a general election of all Koreans. As such, he is the embodiment of the will of the Korean people. He campaigned before the people with a set of ideas and proposals which a plurality excepted as the best direction for the country to go. With that kind of mandate, it would be strange indeed to expect him to suddenly turn from being a democratically-elected political being to simply a politically-neutral administrator.

So the system should be adapted to account for the duel nature of the presidency. As stated earlier, there are presidents for just such a duality. In the United States there is a (sometimes fuzzy) line between the president-as-chief executive and the president-as-political campaigner. For example, if the president uses Air Force One to fly to a campaign event, his campaign has to pay the government for the cost of the flight. There are also recognized differences between political appointees to government posts (who are appointed to serve the will of the president) and career bureaucrats (who are expected to stay out of politics).

So what's the deal? Will Roh get sent up the river?

In the light of what I talked about above, I expect the Constitutional Court to make a precedent recognizing the duel nature of the presidency. In my own grossly oversimplified way, I think it will say this:

1. The president, as chief executive, must remain politically neutral.
2. Since President Roh did not use his powers as chief executive to influence the election, his statements in support of the OOP did not violate that political neutrality.

So, unless the corruption charge sticks, I expect that Roh will be returned to office this week.

Comments

[Joel]

I have a hard time comprehending why any free and democratic society feels the need to block the opinions of one of it's citizens, president or not.

Of course I guess there haven't been many military dictatorships in the states where the only opinion was that of the president. We might feel the need to make a similar law if there had been. Unfortunately laws made in the heat of a moment of revolution are sometimes short-sighted in scope. A law created in the spirit of containing power hungry would-be dictators is now imposing on a man's right to speak his mind. I think he will probably be returned to power though too. Whether that is better for Korea or not I can't say.

[The Yangban]

Joel, I should point out that in America there are two groups that we expect political neutrality from: professional bureaucrats and military personnel.

We expect neutrality from bureaucrats for two reasons:

1. They are expected not to use their positions of authority to coerce potential voters.

2. They are expected to carry out the laws and regulations created by democratically-elected officials without regard to their personal political views.

The reason why we would want the military to stay out of politics should be self-evident.

[Sperwer]

It's important to understand what exactly is required of bureaucrats in politically mature states when mention is made of their required political neutrality. Basically, it means only that they will discharge their official duties and apply and enforce the laws with the implementation of which they are entrusted in a non-discriminatory manner, i.e., without regard to the party-affiliation or independence (or race, ethnicity, religion, etc.) of anyone who comes before them. They are NOT required, however, to give up their own political rights - of speech, assembly or voting, as long as they exercise those rights as individuals in the ways open to individuals, i.e., the minister of transportation can espouse his own political views, support a particular party or candidate, etc., but he cannot use the resources or powers of his office to do so, e.g., solicit money or votes for the causes he supports from ministry employees and/or citizens having business with the ministry. The stupidity of the relevant Korean laws is that they aim to restrict individuals from exercising their individual political rights if they hold certain offices, as if that would have any effect on officials' abuse of their official powers for political purposes -- something which we all know is endemic in Korea and is not likely to be significantly reduced unless the prosecution indefinitely and aggressively continues its current labors in the Augean stables AND the Presidency is either stripped of the power to grant amnestys and pardons or the use of such powers is dramatically curtailed. Judging by the recent announcement that among Noh's first acts when he regains power will be to grant amnesty to most of the cash for summit/nobel prize crowd, and a pardon for Park, the architect of the whole shameful scheme, I'd opt for the former, or at least the requirement that any exercise of the power be subject to significant legislative consent, as apparently agreed by both the major parties.

I also would venture to say that this notion that certain political actors should operate above the political fray is a vestige of the Confusionist notion of rule by the virtuous. Of course, we'd all like our rulers to be "virtuous", but the Confusionist approach is based on the fantasy that the virtuous can be identified in some fashion other than the rough and tumble of politics and that, once in office, they need not be restrained by the sorts of mundane checks and balances that they are empowered to impose on the plebs. Korean political science, practice and institutions needs a big dose of The Federalist Papers and the sort of rule-based checks and balances that were worked out there for the American polity

[Sperwer]

Just a little follow-up on your comment about what you characterize as the "erroneous beliefs" of the DLP.

I'm not sure why you characterize them as erroneous. In the articles you cite, the DLP seems right on the mark in attributing these laws to Korea's proto-fascist regimes of the 50s-80s. That's when they were enacted, and its pretty obvious that their purpose was not to depoliticize the bureacracy but to deprive the individual bureacrats of their individual civil/political rights so that the bureacrats as a collectivity could be transformed into a more pliant instrument of state power and an entire calss of political actors could be taken out of play. This was shrewd political move because the bureacracy draws its personnel from the better educated srata of society who otherwise are more likley to be democratic in orientation.

If on the other hand, you mean to suggest that what really concerns the DLP is not that individuals who happen to be bureacrats have been deprived of their individual civil rights, but that bureacratic organizations qua organizations have been stripped of the power to act politically, then I think you have a point - and I agree with you both that this is the DLP's position and that it is a pernicious view, albeit one that is not expressed in the article that you reference. The deep irony of the DLP's position is that having struggled against the proto-fascist state's cooptation of the bureacracy -- in fact nearly all civic organbizations -- the DLP just wants to do the same thing, which it believes justified because its ideology is correct. That's just tyranny under a different flag.

[The Yangban]

Hi Sperwer,

I'm going to have to disagree with you, at least partially. In a republic, the bureaucracy is a tool for implementing policy as set by the people's elected representatives. A politicized bureaucracy would create a check on people's ability to influence public policy that I think few would tolerate. When you say that the goal is to create a "more pliant instrument of state power," I say "Amen brother!" As long as state power is in the hands of the people, that is as it should be.

Here I differentiate between political appointees and professional bureaucrats. The former are political animals while the later are expected to implement policies regardless of their own political views. On the flip side there is a trade-off; political appointees are changed from administration to administration while professional bureaucrats are protected from such political purges. I see no problem with a bureaucrat being politically active (i.e. trying to create policy) as long as s/he can be replaced by someone who supports the policies of the government's elected leaders. However, professional, politically neutral bureaucracies were created in western democracies to prevent just such a spoils system.

In short, you can't allow bureaucrats to be political actors unless you also allow the people (through their elected officials) to replace them.

So what does this mean as a practical matter? Certainly, there is no reason to limit bureaucrats' voting rights. However, I don't think that a professional bureaucrat should be allowed to publicly advocate policy positions or political leaders unless s/he can be replaced by elected officials. In the American military (admittedly an extreme example), high-ranking officers do not even register as a member of a political party.

Perhaps in the end, we have to decide which useful fiction we choose to believe in; that bureaucrats can avoid being political actors OR that bureaucrats can be political actors and then turn around and implement policy that they advocate against.

[Sperwer]

I don't think we really disagree so much as we're talking a bit at cross-purposes.

I agree that a bureacracy should be an instrument of properly constituted (i.e., democratically directed and controlled) state power.

My point is that there is no necessary contradiction between such an entity and the enjoyment by the individuals within such an organization of their individual rights as citizens. [And that Korea's effort to ensure bureacratic pliancy by denying the civil rights of individual bureacrats, and thus in effect making every clerkship a political office, is a prescription for both corruption and tyranny].

Thus, as long as the individual bureaucrat discharges his duties, including both his obligation to implement the policies of the current political administration in accordance with the law and to do so neutrally vis-a-vis other citizens, regardless of their political, ethnic, religious, etc. affiliation, there should be no restriction on his exercise of his rights of speech, assembly, etc. either to support or criticize such policies.

This principle applies across the board, even to political appointees, subject of course, to the caveat that that higher level appointees to bureaucratic positions are subject to dismissal at the complete discretion of the appropriate democratically elected representative(s) of the people should they choose to diverge from the political administration's policy or fail in implementing it.

In other words, if Rummy were to do a sudden about face and decide that he had to oppose the war, the honorable thing for him to do would be resign, failing which the President could dismiss him, whereupon he could speak out. If he spoke out while in office, Bush could have his desk emptied and turn him out in the street. Rummy's rights aren't violated because he got the job in the first place on the basis of his support for the administration's agenda.

On the other hand, if Defense Department analyst John Smith decides the war is unjustified, he ought to be able to participate in demonstrations, write op-ed pieces, etc. saying so, without jeopardizing his job. The only criteria relevant to whether he can keep working for DOD is that in fact he is doing his job dutifully and carrying out policy (even if he disagrees with it). If he isn't there are administrative procedures -- in fact, it's a rather vast body of law -- for dismissing him. Those procedures, and the possible loss of his livelihood, are the guarantees of his job performance, not his being stripped of his civil rights.

In the Korean context, take the case of teachers who as public employees are subject to certain strictures. Obviously, in the classroom they are obliged to teach the curriculum as specified, [and for the most part, depending on what grade levels we're dealing with, they ought to be restricted from expressing their personal points of view]. If they don't, they should be subject to dismissal in accordance with established procedures. On the other hand, in contrast to existing Korean law, both teachers as individuals and the teachers union ought to have the right to formulate, express and demonstrate for their own opinions regarding educational issues - both procedural and substantive -- outside the classroom, without restraint (except in case of direct, immediate, physical threats to public order).

I don't think it's a matter of dueling fictions, but of achieving a workable synthesis of the system of individual rights that is the foundation of republican democracy and the need for administrative efficiency based on a system of laws and regulations that ensures the more or less effective meshing of the two. Given human nature, there will always be some conflicts.