SEOUL, South Korea — Americans have been transfixed in recent weeks by the spectacle of the indictment of former President Donald Trump — the first time in nearly 250 years that a former leader of the U.S. as a sovereign country has been charged with criminal activity, let alone 34 felonies.
Although pro- and anti-Trumpers pondered the implications of a precedent shattered, the brouhaha compelled a Korean-American academic to pose this question on social media: Has the student, South Korea, overtaken the master, the U.S., in the practice of democracy?
Despite an astonishing political revolution in recent decades that has provided a bedrock for the country’s economic surge, perhaps no other democracy is as keen on putting former presidents in the dock. Despite South Korea’s free elections, free press and strong judicial system, its former leaders have routinely been imprisoned, sentenced to death and even killed themselves amid judicial probes.
Is it a healthy sign that no man or woman is above the law? Or is it a sign of still-pervasive political corruption and a system that seems to promote legal action against the once high and mighty? With Mr. Trump’s case dominating the headlines, South Koreans seem divided.
“There are two contending theories,” said Moon Chung-in, an academic who has advised three administrations in Seoul. “One is that these are political prosecutions, and the other is that there is no exception to the rule of law.”
“I would say the jury is still out,” said Shin Hee-seok, a legal analyst at the Transitional Justice Working Group. “Having experienced all these ex-presidents either getting arrested or killing himself, there is a risk that once you start turning to prosecutors or investigators, it has a tendency to create dangerous precedents.”
Dangerous, indeed. Being a South Korean president is one of Asia’s riskiest professions.
The worst job in politics?
Consider the record.
South Korea was founded in 1948. Its first president, Syngman Rhee, was driven into exile in Hawaii in 1960 after police gunned down student demonstrators. Subsequently, President Park Chung-hee, who seized power in a coup, ruled harshly while engineering the country’s “economic miracle” but was spared that humiliation. He was assassinated by his intelligence chief in 1979.
Chun Doo-hwan, another former general who seized power and was blamed for the killings of more than 200 pro-democracy protesters in 1980, was sentenced to death after he left office. His successor and right-hand man, former Gen. Roh Tae-woo — the first democratically elected president after the military juntas — got a life sentence after stepping down for his participation in past coups and for human rights abuses.
The next two presidents, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, escaped the slammer — but their sons were imprisoned for corruption. The next former president, liberal Roh Moo-hyun, killed himself in 2009 amid probes into alleged familial corruption.
The two subsequent presidents, conservatives Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, were both imprisoned for corruption. Ms. Park’s successor, the liberal Moon Jae-in, under whose term Mr. Lee and Ms. Park were sentenced, remains free.
When Mr. Lee was imprisoned in 2018 on charges of embezzling roughly $22 million, American Enterprise Institute scholar Olivia Schieber observed: “Half of all living former South Korean presidents are now in prison.”
This may appear like just deserts from the public gallery, but none of the condemned presidents served a full sentence. All received political pardons, usually for the sake of “national unity.” Even the widely despised Chun escaped the hangman.
It’s a similar pattern for leading South Korean business figures. Many have been convicted of white-collar crimes but released early, usually with judges citing their importance to the economy.
Fair justice or political vengeance?
South Korean political analysts say legal prosecution has historically been used as a political bludgeon.
“The office of the president has quite a profound influence over the prosecutor’s office,” said Mr. Moon, the former presidential adviser. “The direction of investigations is influenced by the presidential office.”
Some argue that the legal woes of former presidents represent nothing other than political payback by the opposition party after it assumes office. Because of the close ties between politicians and business leaders, it is typically not hard to build a corruption case.
“The entire [presidential] MO is to use the corruption of the other side — of which there is some — to justify your own rule and elevate yourself,” said Michael Breen, the Seoul-based author of “The New Koreans.”
Even so, Mr. Breen sees one upside.
“The only progress that Koreans would feel is that they are no longer afraid of their leaders,” he said. “But they are not able to adjust to having honored and respected ex-presidents.”
Critics say another downside of the South Korean experience is the empowerment of overambitious prosecutors. Trump supporters in the U.S. have echoed that criticism.
“A lot of prosecutors in South Korea see it as micro-heroism if they indict ministers or a president,” said Mr. Moon. “They have big egos and want to leave a historical record — ‘I indicted such and such a person’ — and that is a bad habit.”
Making things worse, the critics say, is that the endless string of pardons for high-profile criminals generates even more popular cynicism about the political process.
“You see so many of them getting out of jail early, so there is a double standard,” said Mr. Shin, who is affiliated with the law department of Seoul’s elite Yonsei University. “I wonder if all of this does not create some level of cynicism about the political and judicial systems.”
Mr. Breen warns Americans against letting political partisanship infiltrate judicial practice.
“I am not saying that Trump is not guilty, but the glee with which it is being received — ‘At last we have got him, and the details don’t really matter’ — while those who are crying foul are all supporters, gives you a sense of what is going on here.”
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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