EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on Sept. 16)

Measure of integrity

In National Assembly confirmation hearings on nominees for high government
offices, records of resident registration by the candidates or their family
members have been closely scrutinized as an important measure of their
qualification. Some with one or two instances of false registration barely passed
the inquisition session after profuse apologies but others with too many such
"misdeeds" had to give up the appointment in humiliation.
The hearings at committees are aimed to assess whether the nominees are qualified
to perform their duties with high moral integrity and professional capabilities
required of the public offices offered to them. Lawmakers at the hearings and the
people watching these sessions generally tend to pay more attention to the
appointees' possible blemishes in private life than their competence in public
service. So the media and the oppositionists check their residence registrations
- and all past research treatises when the nominees are from academia.
As in the case of President Lee Myung-bak, false registration is often made to
enable children to enter certain preferred schools in different districts. Also
common is the practice of moving one's residence registration to certain locales
to officially qualify to buy an apartment or a plot of land. It is against the
Law on Residence Registration but too many people have done it with little or no
sense of guilt. When his violation of the law was exposed during the 2007
campaign, Lee made public apologies.
Acquisition of real estate has been one sure way of increasing assets and sending
children to supposedly better schools is opening a better future for them.
Members of this advancement-oriented society have been in a sort of broad
collusion to connive at each other's falsities which are so common and so easy to
commit. One just has to produce the "confirmation" by the area representative of
his/her old address to be registered in a new address. "Dong" officials would
never check if the newly registered actually live in that address. To buy land in
the countryside, the process is a little more complicated but is not too
difficult.
It may be an indication of the nation's enhanced moral standards that public
censure has become harsher in recent years on false residence registration which
is identified with an attempt at real estate speculation. Nominees for Cabinet
posts and even for prime minister had to bow out upon exposure of their past
false registrations to own multiple apartments. In the series of confirmation
hearings this week, the nominees for prime minister and some other cabinet
portfolios will be grilled about their residence registrations with the same
intensity as about their tax records.
Plagiarism is a major criterion to appraise candidates from universities. Cases
of taking a few lines from others' research papers without proper reference have
caused serious embarrassment and even the withdrawal of appointment. Prime
Minister- nominee Chung Un-chan is said to have quoted from his own previous
paper without attribution, regarded as a violation of the established academic
protocol.
Some sarcastically called for a "general amnesty" of false residence
registrations in the past to emphasize the pervasiveness of the illegal practice,
for which the law provides up to three years' imprisonment and a maximum fine of
10 million won. As is with everything in our imperfect society, there is a
certain degree of impropriety that could expect public tolerance. Acts that
failed to pass that measure of integrity should be strictly dealt with in the
confirmation hearings while people watching them are reminding themselves how
they should henceforth abide by the law.
(END)

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