"Geomsu-wanbak." For five years under the Moon Jae-in administration, South Koreans heard this coinage — shorthand for stripping prosecutors of their investigative powers entirely — until they were sick of it. Then-Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae and Prosecutor General Yoon Suk-yeol spent more than a year locked in confrontation over prosecution reform. A former prosecutor general later became president, and the country went through the unprecedented ordeal of martial law.
After all the twists and turns, power changed hands and the Prosecutors' Office (the prosecution service) passed into history. Yet prosecution reform remains a burning issue. Choo Mi-ae, who has since moved to Gyeonggi Province as governor, is again calling for "reform," and former lawmaker Rhyu Si-min has broken ranks, saying the president "deceived the people" on the issue. The collision between President Lee Jae-myung and hardliners in his own camp looks precarious.
The opposition is no different. The People Power Party is itching to restore the old prosecution service structure if it returns to power. Rep. Han Dong-hoon, himself a former prosecutor, invoked the late President Roh Moo-hyun. How is this any different from the posture of the so-called elite prosecutors 23 years ago, when Roh volunteered for his "dialogue with prosecutors"? Both the ruling camp's hardliners and the opposition are singing the same prosecution reform refrain to rally their bases, timed to the 2028 general election and the 2030 presidential race.
Has life changed over that time? The Gini coefficient for net worth, released recently by the Bank of Korea, rose to 0.625 last year from 0.584 in 2017. Among households in the bottom 20% for both income and net worth, the share headed by people in their 20s and 30s roughly doubled to 15.2% last year from 7.9% in 2020. The central bank diagnosed Korean society as caught in "compound polarization," in which deepening wealth gaps are compounded by a renewed widening of income gaps. In plain terms, the belief that working hard and saving a paycheck will let you buy a home, climb the ladder one rung at a time and live better than your parents is coming apart.
The political philosopher John Rawls proposed the "veil of ignorance" in "A Theory of Justice" — the idea that the principles of a society should be decided without knowing whether you are rich or poor, or to what parents you will be born. Behind that veil, you do not know whether you will inherit an apartment in Gangnam or start your working life in a monthly rental. You do not know whether your parents will hand you a jeonse deposit, a lump-sum deposit lease, or whether you will start out repaying student loans. You do not know whether you will get good schooling and job opportunities in the capital region, or be born in a provincial town worried about disappearing altogether.
Prosecution reform is a serious question of state institutions, but it cannot serve as absolution for political warfare that pushes people's lives to the back burner. Over the 23 years politicians have spent fighting about prosecution reform, home prices have soared, and youth employment, the hollowing out of provincial regions and the wealth gap have waited for none of it.
"What on earth does this squabbling of yours have to do with our lives — the lives of the people?" President Lee said in a June 19 briefing on the results of his European tour. His read on the political crossfire was accurate. But that question should not be aimed only at the ruling party's hardliners. He needs to turn it back on himself and keep pressing. There is no full stop to the question of making a living. This is the second year of the Lee Jae-myung administration, and golden time is slipping away.