Roh advises prosecutors to moderate efforts

President Roh Moo-hyun in his first Blue House staff meeting yesterday suggested that prosecutors should moderate their investigations, in the interest of easing the anxiety of the people that a new administration means a new round of score-settling.
The remark came after Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Corp., was accused of incurring 207 billion won ($174 million) in losses for major SK Group subsidiaries through allegedly illegal stock swaps.
Prosecutors are also investigating whether Representative Lee Yoon-soo of the Millennium Democratic Party received bribes from a construction company in return for lucrative contracts.
President Roh mentioned the likelihood that the public would perceive full-scale audit and inspection activities as a ritual of the new administration in its early stage. He said that audit bodies should not keep suspects under custody to mollify public ire over the alleged irregularities. “Wrongdoing must be punished, but that process should be reasonable and dispassionate,” he said.
During the early days of Kim Dae-jung’s presidency, tensions arose when prosecutors investigated allegations that an official of the National Tax Service had solicited illegal campaign funds in 1997 for the New Korea Party, the predecessor of the Grand National Party.
In 1993, Mr. Kim’s predecessor Kim Young-sam expelled politically minded generals from active service and introduced real-name requirements for financial transactions. Mr. Kim also forced senior public officials and politicians to declare assets of their families.
Political observers said President Roh, who emphasized reforms and national solidarity in his inaugural address, wants to prevent his reform program getting deadlocked at an early stage.
Moon Jae-in, senior presidential chief for civil affairs, said the new government did not orchestrate the prosecutors’ full-scale investigations of the conglomerates. “At present, the prosecutors do not brief the Blue House, and there are no dialogue channels,” Mr. Moon said.
He expressed concern over the adverse effect of the ongoing investigation on foreign investment and the stock exchange index. He stressed that President Roh does not want audit bodies to automatically fawn over the Blue House.

by Choi Hoon