Use your prison term to atone for your wrongdoings
Published: 16 Dec. 2024, 20:02
Cho Kuk bids his brief stint in the legislature goodbye as he is headed for a two-year prison sentence after the Supreme Court last week upheld lower court convictions for fabricating documents to boost his children’s tertiary institutional admissions and using his influence as a presidential secretary to close an internal inspection. He went on to launch the Rebuilding Korea Party, which won 12 seats in the National Assembly in the April election. With the ruling, he immediately loses his seat and cannot run in any election for five years.
The top court agreed with most of the lower courts’ findings — the charge of violating the Public Officials Ethics Act for cooking up admission documents for his children and his daughter’s full scholarship at Pusan National University’s medical school, as well as for his role in a corruption case involving former Busan Vice Mayor Yoo Jae-soo.
Cho has stayed defiant and unremorseful, lashing out at the prosecution for targeting him for a political purpose. He roused his supporters, claiming vindication for pursuing prosecutorial reform. He caused a deepening of the ideological divide. The Moon Jae-in administration, which went all-out to defend him, lost the moral high ground and eventually governing power. Then-Prosecutor General Yoon Suk Yeol, who stood firmly to stave off pressure from the government, was eventually courted by the conservatives to run in and win the presidential election. In hindsight, the Cho-Yoon face-off could have been the flash point of today’s political anarchy with the president on the brink of impeachment after a martial law fiasco.
Cho was found guilty in the appeals court in February. He nevertheless founded a party and got elected with the help of the proportional representative system. If the courts had not taken five years to close his case — three years and one month for the first trial, one year for the second and 10 months for the final — all the aberrations would have been saved. The Supreme Court at least had the good sense of delivering the verdict amidst the political tumult. Cho must remember that he should use his prison term to atone for his wrongdoings.
The top court agreed with most of the lower courts’ findings — the charge of violating the Public Officials Ethics Act for cooking up admission documents for his children and his daughter’s full scholarship at Pusan National University’s medical school, as well as for his role in a corruption case involving former Busan Vice Mayor Yoo Jae-soo.
Cho has stayed defiant and unremorseful, lashing out at the prosecution for targeting him for a political purpose. He roused his supporters, claiming vindication for pursuing prosecutorial reform. He caused a deepening of the ideological divide. The Moon Jae-in administration, which went all-out to defend him, lost the moral high ground and eventually governing power. Then-Prosecutor General Yoon Suk Yeol, who stood firmly to stave off pressure from the government, was eventually courted by the conservatives to run in and win the presidential election. In hindsight, the Cho-Yoon face-off could have been the flash point of today’s political anarchy with the president on the brink of impeachment after a martial law fiasco.
Cho was found guilty in the appeals court in February. He nevertheless founded a party and got elected with the help of the proportional representative system. If the courts had not taken five years to close his case — three years and one month for the first trial, one year for the second and 10 months for the final — all the aberrations would have been saved. The Supreme Court at least had the good sense of delivering the verdict amidst the political tumult. Cho must remember that he should use his prison term to atone for his wrongdoings.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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