(EDITORIAL from the Korea Times on May 9)

Arrest or not?
There can be no exception in administering law

Pathetic should be the word used to describe the governing camp's efforts to keep
former President Roh Moo-hyun out of jail.
More than a week has passed since Roh underwent prosecutors' questioning on
charges of committing "broadly defined bribery," but the nation's top law
enforcement officers have yet to decide whether to arrest him or not.
Ironically, delaying the prosecution's decision are not just the supporters of
the disgraced former leader, but his political adversaries who have opposed his
physical detention.
The reason Roh's fans cite in defending their idol is simple: It is a plot or
"political vendetta" by the ruling elite to crush what remains of Roh's political
legacy by attacking his moral superiority built on the image of integrity.
There may be some room for such suspicions, particularly because the probes
almost coincided with Roh's explicit criticism of government policies.
It's also true the $6 million or so Roh's wife and son allegedly received from a
local footwear maker and Roh's longtime supporter could be seen as negligible
compared with the hundreds of millions of dollars raked in by
generals-turned-presidents in the 1980s, or the nearly $1 billion reportedly sent
to Swiss banks by family members of Roh's Taiwanese political twin, Chen
Shui-bian.
But none of this can justify the alleged acceptance of bribes by the former first
family, not just because Roh's slogan was clean politics. It's because -- and
solely because -- the law prohibits the taking of bribes, large or small, by any
government employee, high or low. Period.
So when a former press aide to Roh said his family's graft should be understood
as necessary for securing a "cost of living," she disgraced not just her former
boss -- almost beyond reparation -- but also numerous ordinary Koreans toiling to
make their living with only a fraction of the amount.
Even harder to understand are the reasons cited by Roh's enemies.
Some stress the need for courteous treatment of a former chief executive. This
political equivalent of "crocodile's tears" begs the question why they started
all this in the first place, then.
Likewise, others say political and moral disgrace would be more painful than
legal punishment. This only reveals their thinly-veiled concerns about a
political backlash -- either out of popular sympathy with the former leader
degraded to a nadir, or in "adversely affecting" the prosecution's probes into
the "live power," aides and friends of President Lee Myung-bak, by forcing the
law enforcement authorities to apply equally strict standards.
Backing up such suspicions is the reported visit to the Prosecutor General's
Office by the nation's top spy and Lee's closest confidante to express his ??? or
his boss's -- intention that Roh be kept out of prison.
Prosecutor General Lim Chae-jin, himself long under the suspicion of taking
bribes from the Samsung Group, is reportedly persuading younger prosecutors to
take such feeling from "up above" into account.
Inducing one's cringes most is a group of politicians and media commentators
calling for forgiving and forgetting Roh, who they contemptuously describe as a
"petty" taker of bribes given by a small-business owner, compared with the former
military dictators who received hundreds of times as much from big businesses.
When the discretion of the people posing themselves as intellectuals is like
this, the newspaper industry's crisis here seems only too natural.
The prosecution must apply the same laws on Roh and his family members -- as well
as President Lee's cronies -- as administered to any "ordinary" bribe-takers. And
not for helping the public vent their spite against the governing class but for
reestablishing law and principle or reaffirming there still remain such concepts
in this society.
Damage on national reputation has already been done not just because of this
particular episode but because of lots of similar "incidents" preceding it.
Whether it is due to the prosecution's poor investigation or out of its political
consideration, it would be the failure to arrest Roh -- not his arrest -- that
would add further disgrace to the nation.
(END)