Central Body Set Up To Check Corruption

The government will set up an "Anti-Corruption Commission" that will look into possible corruption committed by public institutions and organizations, political parties and businessmen.

The new body will be created under the Anti-Corruption Act, which passed the National Assembly Thursday. The commission, which will start work next year, will fall directly under the Blue House.

Thursday's enactment ends a 22-month odyssey for the bill, one of the major pieces of reform legislation proposed by President Kim Dae-jung and his administration. Mr. Kim outlined the need for the bill nearly two years ago, and it was introduced at the National Assembly in December 1999.

Two other keystone Kim reforms are the Human Rights Act, recently enacted, and the Anti-Money Laundering Bill, still awaiting approval.

Under the new anti-corruption statute, the nine-member commission will receive complaints of possible corruption, which it must forward to the Board of Audit and Inspection or other authorities for full inquiries.

Corruption charges against senior government officials -vice ministers, mayors and provincial governors － must be filed with the prosecutor's office. If the prosecution does not make an indictment, those who have initiated the corruption cases may request arbitration.

The law also specifies that "whistleblowers" who file corruption charges will be protected.

Similar political dynamics prevailed in the closely divided Assembly to those that worked to pass the Human Rights Act last month. With 268 legislators present, the administration's bill passed with 135 ayes and 126 nays. Seven legislators abstained from voting. The ruling coalition, consisting of the Millennium Democratic Party, the United Liberal Democrats and the Democratic People's Party, controls 137 votes.

The opposition Grand National Party, with its 132 assembly seats, failed to shore up votes for its version of the bill, which included the appointment of a special prosecutor.

On Thursday, legislators also enacted 12 other bills into laws, including a measure to look into suspicious deaths.

Partisan tension on the floor rose as Speaker Lee Man-sup presented an opposition-initiated motion to dismiss Unification Minister Lim Dong-won and Defense Minister Kim Dong-shin, for their conduct at the time of the incursion of North Korean commercial ships into southern territorial waters early this month. The motion must be approved or rejected within the next 72 hours.

The opposition is moving on a proposal for parliamentary inspection into whether the National Tax Service's inquiry into 23 national media companies was politically motivated. The Millennium Democratic Party is expected to stonewall that proposal. But it needs the opposition's cooperation to pass a supplementary budget, raising the likelihood that the June session will end with paralysis on the floor.

by Ko Jung-ae