hankyoreh

An agent from the National Intelligence Service has been caught intervening in a court case. President Lee Myung-bak has been suing The Hankyoreh Daily and asking for damages, and the NIS is getting involved. It is in more than a few ways inappropriate for an arm of the state to be put to use in a personal lawsuit on the part of the president.

The NIS says it had no intention of involving itself in the trial. But an NIS agent telephoned the judge responsible and told him it was a “special trial,” proceeded to ask questions about the way the trial was going and then showed up in court. That by itself is something that influences a trial. The president is one of the parties to the trial and the mightily powerful NIS is showing an active interest. Together, that is more than enough for the court to feel pressured. It is an infringement on the independence of the courts. It is also a threat to our constitutional system, of which an independent judiciary is a major pillar.

What is also surprising is that it has gotten to the point where the NIS no longer worries about when and where and who will notice when crossing the line. The NIS and its predecessor, the Agency for National Security Planning, has, in its history, frequently reached out to engage in surveillance in various areas of society like political parties, universities, and government offices. Operatives would walk about the courts and the prosecution nonstop under the pretext of being “liaison officers” (yeollakgwan), and they would interfere in investigations and court trials. It seemed to be quieting down for a while, but now, since the arrival of the government of Lee Myung-bak, this kind of interference is on the rise again, and it is even becoming more overt. An earlier example of this return to the past would be how professors opposing the Grand Korean Waterway were visited in their offices and pressured with questions about what they were up to. Now you have an operative openly going directly to the judge responsible for a trail and engaging in surveillance activities, so things are worse than they were during the military regimes.

This behavior on the part of the NIS is clearly illegal. In Article 3 of the National Intelligence Service Act, the agency’s domestic intelligence activities are to be limited to anti-communist intelligence and to persons suspected of espionage, attempting to overthrow the government, terrorism, and international crime networks operating in Korea. It is going way beyond that limit to be asking a judge overseeing civil lawsuit between two individuals questions about the trial and gathering information in court. Furthermore, since the president is one of the parties to the lawsuit, it is highly likely that someone got someone involved. Someone needs to be held responsible for this abuse of official authority by getting to the bottom of who directed this to happen.

Illegality and injustice go rampant the more you remain indifferent and ignore it. This time around, the activity was exposed because the judge took clear action. The court system as a whole, too, needs to take clear and strong action to make sure things like this do not continue.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]