Shaking up lawyer-based governance

Yeom Jae-ho
The author is the president of Taejae University and former president of Korea University.

The April 10 parliamentary election was about punishing opponents, not about visions or policies. The main players, including the president and leaders of the two major parties, all had a legal background. The head of the fledgling Rebuilding Korea Party is a former law school professor.

A total of 61 legal professionals were elected, 15 more than the past election. They now make up 20.3 percent of the 300-member National Assembly. Fifty-five were elected from districts. Five out of the seven prime ministers since the Lee Myung-bak administration are law school graduates. Most of the presidential candidates since the Two Kims era were law school graduates. Former President Moon Jae-in and current president Yoon Suk Yeol were also legal professionals.

Parliaments in other countries have a limited number of legal professionals. As of the 2019 election, Britain had 47 lawmakers with legal backgrounds comprising 7.2 percent of its 650-member parliament. France had 28 members comprising 4.8 percent of its 577-member Parliament during the 2022–2027 term, and Japan had only 14 members comprising 3 percent of its 465 members in 2021. Just 9.4 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives, in 2023, were former judges and prosecutors.

Legal professionals analyze cases logically and demonstrate expertise in the process of drafting and deliberating bills compared to other types of professionals. They have the ability to subdue their opponents with formal logic. They are trained to evaluate and judge others based on objective evidence and logical analysis.

I also studied public administration in an undergraduate law department, and classes focused on deductive reasoning similar to seeking the right answer in mathematics. But in graduate schools, public administration is a part of the political science department. So I had to learn the inductive method of searching for alternatives. I studied under Professor James March at Stanford University, and he compared the policy decision to “log rolling” rather than “finding the answer.” When many people roll the same log, everyone must properly allocate force; if one or two people push too hastily, the log will not roll properly.

Politicians with legal backgrounds often propose the right answer to every issue — such as a 30% cut to the research and development budget or an increase to the medical school enrollment quota of 2,000 annually — as if they are handing down a sentence. They reinforce their political stances by blaming others for own their faults. Both the left and the right make people suffer with self-righteous politics.

A distorted national agenda will create a serious crisis. Amid the chaos of the artificial intelligence revolution, all paradigm shifts from the rebuilding of the international order, including the U.S.-China conflict, North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, changes in the global value chain, longer life expectancy and the low birthrate, will be seismic.

Can’t Korean political leaders see this turbulence? Do they really think their role is just to eradicate old evils, clear the remnants of Japanese colonial rule, end the leftist cartel and bring prosecutors’ dictatorship to judgment, rather than further developing hard-earned economic growth and democratization?

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” depicts Lincoln’s leadership of tolerance to embrace his political opponents. A self-taught lawyer, Lincoln appointed his rivals from the presidential primary to the posts of secretary of state, treasury secretary, and attorney general. Three ministers were from the opposition Democratic Party. At first, Lincoln’s rivals despised him for lacking experience and knowledge. But they soon respected him and called him nearly perfect. Lincoln displayed outstanding leadership when unifying the nation to resolve serious national crises, such as the Civil War and widespread slavery,

Politicians who seek to become national leaders must talk about their future policies first. The people should not be brought into a revenge battle centered around legal professionals such as the Lawyers for a Democratic Society members and former prosecutors. In the age of chaos and change, leadership of tolerance — to persuade the opponent on future national priorities and reach agreement — is more desperately needed than leadership of judgment and punishment. The president must declare an end to political confrontation and display leadership of tolerance by setting the nation’s future as a top priority.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.