hankyoreh

It was confirmed that the nine judges of the Constitutional Court, which recently ruled that the tax is partly unconstitutional, have not publicized information on their assets in an official gazette posted on the court’s Web site. With growing criticism that the court’s decision has left the comprehensive real estate tax without substance in favor of wealthy home owners, such as those living in Seoul’s affluent Gangnam district, there are now growing suspicions about why the court has not yet provided a clear explanation for why they did not publish the information as required by law.

Monthly gazettes that have been published so far this year are posted on the site, according to the court’s Web site (www.ccourt.go.kr). But when the gazettes were accessed on November 14, none were found to contain data about the assets of the court’s judges, information which should have been published in one of the gazettes early this year. Under the ethics law governing government officials, high-ranking officials are required to reveal their assets in an official gazette published by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, or in a similar newsletter issued by the National Assembly and the judicial department, every year by the end of March. The court’s chief justice, judges, deputy secretary-general and chief policy coordinator are all required to publicize their assets and any changes of wealth through the official gazette.

In response, an official with the court’s editing department said, “Changes in the wealth of the judges were published in official gazette No. 137, which was published in March of this year. However, the (court’s) Administration and Management Department (which has since changed its name to the Legal Audit Department) asked us not to post the asset information on the Internet at that time, so we scanned the gazette and excluded the information before posting it on the Internet.”

An official with the Legal Audit Department said they did not publish the information “because asset data could be manipulated if it was publicized on the Internet.” The official added that the information is being released in an off-line publication, which is being distributed by related agencies, and it can be viewed at the court’s library. However, other government ministries and the National Assembly release similar information in both an online newsletter or Web site and an offline publication.

Lee Jae-geun, head of the public administration monitoring center at the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, said, “The Constitutional Court posts the official gazette on the Internet as an ‘official gazette,’ meaning that it is official even if it is on the Internet. Therefore, it would be appropriate for the court to post all of the content that appears in the hard copy of the gazette in the Internet version. Other government agencies make such information public on the Internet, but there has not been a single case of manipulation,” Lee said, adding that he wondered if the judges had chosen not to release the information because they were reluctant to reveal their assets.

Another official with the court’s Legal Audit Department said, “We are considering publicizing the information on the Internet in the future.”

According the court’s official gazette No. 137, meanwhile, seven of the court’s nine judges live in Gangnam or the neighboring Seocho district (five in Gangnam and two in Seocho). This has led some to question whether the fact of the judges’ property ownership had an influence on their ruling on the comprehensive real estate tax.

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