“Anti-corruption reform and realization of a fair society is the administration’s mission.”

- “We need to see to it that a fair, anti-corruption system that cannot be shaken is established whoever takes the position of the Prosecutor General.” -

- In the legal community, the practice of retired senior officials receiving preferential treatment from their former colleagues must be rooted out through stronger administrative and institutional measures. -

- In the private education market, private academic institutes, illegal and unfair practices ought to be rectified. -

- The public sector should take the lead and the private sector should make concerted efforts to ensure that a fair recruitment culture spreads throughout society. -

November 8, 2019

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

The Anti-Corruption Policy Consultative Council Meeting for Fair Society was convened under the chairmanship of the president Moon Jae-in today at Cheong Wa Dae. This meeting was attended by 33 heads of anti-corruption related ministries and agencies.

In today’s meeting, attendants discussed numerous measures to ensure that irregularities, evasive tactics and tricks as well as unjust privileges and unfairness entrenched in the people’s lives are eradicated in order that the value of fairness can take firm root across all sectors of our society.

In particular, there were intensive discussions on ways to stamp out the practices of retired public officials colluding with their former agencies and receiving preferential treatment, to rectify illegal and unfair practices including private academic institutes in the private education market, and to establish fair recruitment system in the public sector with fair employment culture spreading to the private sector, the reforms of which are strongly demanded by the people.

The president Moon Jae-in started his opening remarks by saying, “My administration’s mission is to carry out anti-corruption reform and create a fair society,” adding that “we have been expanding the scope of the anti-corruption policy’s application, starting from uprooting long-accumulated evils and reforming law enforcement agencies to eradicating long-running social ills that permeate everyday life.”

The president also emphasized that “the reform of the law enforcement apparatus is now in its final stage – enactment of relevant laws. The finalization of the legislation, including establishment of an agency to investigate crimes among senior government officials, will prevent any recurrence of such unfortunate disgrace as the influence-peddling scandal involving state affairs and will move us one step closer to making a just country where the people are the rightful owners.”

On top of this, the president said, “The items on today’s agenda are urgent tasks that must be resolved to make our society fairer. I urge you to ensure a complete break with the unfair practices of the past so that the people can sense all the drastic changes.”

The president also particularly commented on the reform of the Prosecutors’ Office, saying “the people’s demand for prosecutorial reform is very strong. The task hereafter is to create a fair, anti-corruption system that cannot be shaken and to ensure that it remains in place not only under the current Prosecutor General Yoon Seok Youl but also his successors. I urge you to establish anti-corruption system that not only addresses corruption in a strict manner, but also secures a higher level of democracy and a higher degree of fairness and human rights in the exercise of government authority in the course of investigations and prosecution.”

In this meeting, heads of relevant ministries and agencies also briefed the president on the progress made by and the way forward for the Anti-Corruption Policy Consultative Council for Fair Society.

The Ministry of Justice stated that it will ensure to establish fair administrative procedures of criminal justice and eradicate the practice of giving preferential treatment to retired senior officials in the legal community in order to recover the public confidence in the exercise of judicial power. The Ministry of Personnel Management said that it will seriously take the current situation where the public distrust still runs high over the preferential treatment given to high-ranking officials and will establish more stringent screening system for fair recruitment in a way that meets the expectation of the people and build up a regular monitoring system to see to it that retired officials are not involved in irregularities and unfair practices after re-employment.

The National Tax Service remarked that it will designate the period of two to three years after the retirement of senior officials as a period of intensive monitoring, and will put more efforts into collecting site information and examining tax returns filed and the status of changes in assets, etc. so as to verify suspected tax dodgers’ compliance with his/her duty of tax payment.

The Ministry of Education announced that, to enhance fairness in education, they will make concerted efforts with other ministries and agencies at a pan-governmental level to improve the current college admission system and to make sure that the system is not distorted in an unjust manner by the private education market. The Ministry of Employment and Labor also stated that it will strengthen its crackdown on hiring irregularities and improve or supplement the fair recruitment system in conjunction with other relevant ministries and agencies, thereby creating a fair recruitment culture in the public sector first and spreading it to the private sector in a subsequent manner.