Home > Opinion > Columns

A public service on edge as political cycles repeat

Published: 18 Nov. 2025, 00:03

Yoo Jee-hye

The author is the head of the diplomatic and security news department at the JoongAng Ilbo.

“I have to work here through at least the next three presidents. Please don’t make me do things like this.”

That was the response a mid-level civil servant gave to a superior shortly after the start of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. The order involved a sensitive issue. The supervisor was taken aback, but did not press the matter and simply told the employee to step out. The reaction was understandable. Actions taken under the previous administration at the direction of the Blue House had since become liabilities, with new audits and shifting interpretations shaking the bureaucracy.

President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Yongsan on Nov. 11. At left is Prime Minister Kim Min-seok. The meeting discussed the launch of the government’s “Constitutional Order and Government Reform” task force. [YONHAP]

Another junior public servant, speaking during the Moon Jae-in government, offered a similar glimpse of fear. “People say you are a fool if you walk into a director-general’s office these days without recording it.” With the administration pursuing an expansive campaign to “clean up deep-rooted evils,” even officials who had merely followed instructions found themselves the subjects of audits, investigations or probes. Securing evidence of who exactly in the chain of command had issued an order, they said, was the only way to survive a future change in government.

These stories surface again because they have become a recurring pattern in Korea’s civil service after each political transition. The launch of the “Constitutional Order and Government Reform Task Force,” created to investigate public officials who may have participated in the attempted martial-law declaration, has raised similar anxieties.

President Lee Jae Myung’s position is clear. In a message posted on X on Sunday, he said that accountability is the foundation of organizational integrity. If any civil servants were involved in the martial-law scheme, identifying them and taking appropriate action would reinforce professional norms in government.

Yet, experience shows how such processes can unintentionally wound the bureaucracy as a whole.

Korea’s administrative hierarchy is rigid. Civil servants often refer to the president as “chairman” and the minister as “CEO,” a reflection of the near-absolute authority the hierarchy represents. Defying a minister’s instruction is almost unimaginable. Holding senior decision-makers accountable is one matter. Punishing working-level staff who had no meaningful autonomy is another.

But the Moon administration’s drive to dismantle what it labeled entrenched abuses often blurred that line. Investigators seized personal notebooks, questioned division directors about why they had followed certain directives and cast many officials as remnants of wrongdoing for carrying out decisions that had flowed down through the chain of command. The term “trawling investigation,” describing a sweep of thousands of public officials, circulated widely. A sense took hold that diligent workers suffered the most.

The Lee administration insists that the new task force is different and that only those directly or indirectly involved in the martial-law attempt will be reviewed. Still, the structure of the effort leaves room for concern.

The stated goal of the task force is to recommend personnel actions. Yet many senior officials from the previous administration, including ministers and vice ministers, are already under formal investigation. That means the practical targets of personnel action may be mid-career or junior officials who executed orders rather than made them, prompting fears that this could amount to another purge.

Jang Dong-hyeok, leader of the People Power Party, criticizes the government’s plan to investigate public officials over alleged involvement in the martial-law attempt, showing a past video of President Lee Jae Myung during a party leadership meeting at the National Assembly in Yeouido on Nov. 17. [YONHAP]

Another source of unease is the decision to include allegations raised through internal whistleblowing. That opens the possibility that unsubstantiated claims driven by personal rivalries or internal conflicts could expose civil servants to hardship. Officials could even face reassignment or suspension and possible referral to prosecutors if they refuse to surrender their personal mobile phones. “There has always been pressure to hand over personal phones,” one public official said, “but never this openly.”

The task force’s operations may also paralyze routine personnel appointments. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, director-general-level appointments at headquarters are linked to senior ambassadorial posts. After all special envoys were recalled at the end of June, 40 of Korea’s 172 overseas missions have lacked ambassadors for five months. The Atlanta consul general was vacant when Korean workers were mass-detained in the United States. The post in Cambodia was unfilled when a Korean university student was tortured and killed. Without leadership at these missions, Korea’s ability to protect its citizens abroad could be weakened further if the vacuum persists.

Breaking ties with those who orchestrated or enabled the martial-law scheme is necessary. But there is a risk of burning down the entire house to catch a single pest. Public officials may appear to have little power, obediently surrendering their phones when asked, yet each one forms a pillar supporting the Lee administration. If they begin to focus more on self-protection than policy delivery, or spend their days calculating the risks posed by the next administration, the government’s own goals will slip further from reach.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.