Author Archives: Vincent Wu

Reforming South Korea’s New Anticorruption Agency: How to Promote Independence without Inducing Paralysis

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Back in December 2019, South Korean President Moon Jae-in achieved what seemed like a major victory in his anticorruption platform when the National Assembly established a new agency, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO). Armed with broad investigatory authority, as well as a more limited but nonetheless important power to prosecute members of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office (SPO), the CIO was supposed to be at the vanguard of the effort to clean up South Korean government. Yet for over a year, the CIO was unable to operate because it had no Director General. The reason for this had to do with the original design of the mechanism for selecting this official. In an effort to ensure a consensus candidate and avoid politicization of the agency, the original CIO legislation required that a Director General candidate receive the support of six out of the seven members of a Recommendation Committee composed of the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Court Administration, the President of the Korean Bar Association, two members from President Moon’s party, and two members from the opposition People Power Party (PPP). That system meant that at least one opposition party member would need to support a candidate for that candidate to be appointed, thus preventing the President from installing a crony.

The system, however, did not work as intended, because the two PPP members on the Committee refused to confirm any of the candidates put before the Committee. Finally, in December 2020, a year after the CIO’s creation, the National Assembly passed a bill that reduced the number of votes needed to recommend a candidate from six to five. This enabled the Recommendation Committee to appoint (over the opposition of the Committee’s two PPP members) the CIO’s first Director General, Kim Jin-wook, and the CIO finally began operating in January. Naturally, the PPP was outraged. This change to the appointment procedure, the PPP argued, undermines the CIO’s independence and enables the President to ensure that this powerful agency is run by a loyalist, who is likely to be unfairly biased against the opposition.

This concern is fair, up to a point. Three of the seven members of the Committee—the two members of the majority party and the Minister of Justice—are closely aligned with the President. The Minister of Court Administration is appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, not the President, but the President appoints the Chief Justice, and Korean Chief Justices have a history of colluding with presidents. A fifth member, the President of the Korean Bar Association, is elected by a vote among the local bar chapters. While this may provide some check on the President, it is a weak one, and the PPP and other critics are right to be concerned.

Nevertheless, the reduction in the required number of votes from six to five was an improvement under the circumstances. The threat of biased anticorruption investigations, though real, is not much greater with the new version of the CIO than under the status quo. And while greater safeguards would be welcome, there are better ways to promote an unbiased agency than to give the opposition a veto over its leader.

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South Korea’s New Corruption Investigation Office Needs Independent Prosecutorial Power

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When South Korean President Moon Jae-in took office, it was clear that fighting corruption was going to be high on his agenda. After all, his predecessor Park Geun-hye was sentenced to 24 years for pressuring conglomerates such as Samsung and Lotte to give millions of dollars to her friend’s foundation. And the president before her was sentenced to 15 years for collecting bribes of up to $5.4 million from Samsung in exchange for favors. President Moon capitalized on the nation’s anger and sense of betrayal, pledging to crack down on corruption. Part of his reform agenda included addressing how Korea’s investigative and prosecutorial bodies—including the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office (SPO)—have handled, or mishandled, corruption cases.

This concern led to the enactment, in 2019, of legislation authorizing the creation of a new agency called the Corruption Investigation Office for High Ranking Officials (CIO). The CIO can investigate certain crimes, such as bribery and embezzlement, related to the duties of current and retired high-ranking public officials—including, but not limited to, the President, SPO prosecutors, judges, and members of the National Assembly. The CIO has the authority to investigate current and former officials, their family members, and other individuals who are implicated in the crimes under investigation. This means if a company employee bribes the grandson of a public official, then the CIO can investigate the company. Furthermore, other law enforcement agencies must immediately notify the CIO when they learn of crimes that fall under the CIO’s investigative jurisdiction, and the CIO can compel those cases to be transferred to it.

There is, however, a significant problem with this new system, one that will likely impede the CIO’s ability to hold high-level politicians and their cronies accountable: The CIO lacks the power to prosecute most of the cases it investigates. The CIO does have the limited authority to prosecute SPO prosecutors (including the Prosecutor General, who heads the SPO), as well as judges and high-ranking police officers. But for all of its other investigations, the CIO must turn the results of its inquiries over to the SPO, which retains the discretion to decide whether or whom to prosecute. Without independent prosecutorial authority, the CIO is unlikely to live up to its potential to make significant progress against high-level corruption.

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The ComEd Corruption Scandal is a Wake Up Call for Illinois

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In 2020, one of the largest energy companies in America, Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), admitted to bribing “Public Official A” for legislation that allowed the company to increase the utility rates ComEd charged to Illinois citizens. Public Official A is almost certainly former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, the longest-serving House Speaker in a state legislature in American history. Though Madigan denies wrongdoing and has not yet been charged, the evidence indicates that for close to a decade, ComEd bribed Madigan—for example, by giving Madigan’s allies political patronage jobs and “do-nothing consulting” contracts—in exchange for favorable legislation.

Madigan’s tenure as Speaker exemplifies Lord Acton’s adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely. During his time as Speaker, Madigan consolidated power over the legislative process, as well as substantial leverage over how other House members voted. This concentration of influence made him the ideal corruption broker for companies like ComEd. Preventing this sort of corruption from arising in the future will require various reforms, including the empowerment of external watchdogs, such as the currently dysfunctional and ineffective Office of the Legislative Inspector General. But while proposals to reform this office (see here and here) are welcome, genuine structural reform will require addressing the excessive concentration of power in the House Speaker. If Illinois, and similar jurisdictions, hope to tackle the sort of corruption we see in the ComEd scandal, it is essential to ensure greater dispersion of power within the legislature.

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The Significance of Mexico’s Upcoming Referendum on Lifting Former Presidents’ Immunity from Prosecution

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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (commonly known as AMLO) has repeatedly assailed Mexico’s former presidents as corrupt. However, despite his attacks, AMLO has said that he does not want to pursue criminal actions against his predecessors. Therefore, AMLO raised eyebrows this past September when he called for a referendum that asks citizens to vote on the question whether “the relevant authorities should, in accordance with the applicable laws and procedures, investigate and if appropriate punish, the presumed crimes committed by former presidents,” specifically naming former presidents Enrique Peña Nieto, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, and Felipe Calderón. Opponents challenged the referendum as unconstitutional, on the grounds that Mexico’s Constitution prohibits popular consultations on matters involving guarantees like the presumption of innocence and due process. However, Mexico’s Supreme Court narrowly held, by a 6-5 vote, that the referendum would be constitutional, but voted 8-3 to modify it. The Court altered the language by deleting the reference to the ex-presidents and the phrase “presumed crimes” so that the referendum now reads: “Do you agree or not that the relevant authorities should, in accordance with the constitution and legal framework, undertake a process of clearing up political decisions taken in previous years by politicians, with an aim to guaranteeing justice and the rights of possible victims?” Mexico’s lower house of Congress approved the revised referendum and set the date of the vote for August 2021. AMLO, however, wants the referendum to be held in June 2021, during Mexico’s midterm elections.

Seizing on the vagueness of the referendum and AMLO’s hostility towards his predecessors, AMLO’s opponents have attacked him for attempting to undermine the judicial system and seek political revenge by having a public vote on whether to prosecute and convict former presidents. Other critics have argued the referendum, which is both vaguely worded and non-binding, will not have any real impact, and amounts to little more than political virtue signaling intended to boost AMLO’s party in the upcoming midterm elections.

To a certain extent, I agree with the latter criticism. AMLO’s primary motivation in promoting this referendum is likely political: He wants to (re)create a positive association between his party and the fight against corruption. It’s probably not a coincidence that the push for the referendum comes at a time when one of Mexico’s biggest corruption scandals is unfolding, with former President Peña Nieto accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. It’s probably also not a coincidence that AMLO wants to hold the referendum vote on the same day as the 2021 midterm elections. Despite having won power in a landslide in 2018, AMLO and his party are currently in political trouble. Mexico continues to face economic stagnation and high crime, and AMLO’s administration has failed to control the coronavirus. As for AMLO’s promise to rid his country of corruption—a major component of his presidential campaign—he hasn’t made much progress here either. AMLO’s anticorruption credentials have been further tarnished by a leaked video showing AMLO’s brother receiving packages of money from a government functionary that were used to strengthen AMLO’s political party ahead of the 2018 election. It seems that AMLO is attempting to divert attention from his political and policy failures by introducing a referendum that will focus attention on the corruption of prior administrations.

But just because there is a political motivation behind the referendum does not mean that the referendum won’t have a meaningful impact. It likely will, whichever way it comes out.

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What Made Alexei Navalny an Anticorruption Icon?

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On August 20, 2020, former Russian presidential candidate Alexei Navalny fell ill while on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He slipped into a coma and was immediately evacuated to Berlin, where doctors discovered that Navalny had been poisoned by a Soviet-era nerve agent. While the Kremlin has denied any involvement, the chemical nerve agent used on Navalny was similar to the one that Russia was accused of using to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in 2018.

A Kremlin-orchestrated attempt on Navalny’s life was hardly surprising. For the past decade, Navalny has been making a name for himself as one of the leading figures opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party. Navalny has denounced United Russia as a “party of crooks and thieves” and has organized campaigns to unseat Putin-affiliated politicians across the country. Furthermore, Navalny’s investigative journalism has uncovered government corruption, and he has used these exposés to advocate for political reform and to bolster his own popularity, especially among the younger generation. Navalny’s success in exposing corruption highlights several interesting and unique tactics and personal attributes that allowed him to be an effective advocate in a country that routinely punishes government opposition.

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Fighting Corruption in Chicago Requires Fundamental Systemic Reforms to City Government

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Chicago, a city with an economy larger than that of countries like Thailand and Belgium, has won the title of the most corrupt city in America, with a total of 1,750 public corruption convictions between 1976 and 2018. (Los Angeles came in second with 1,547 convictions, while New York City (Manhattan) had 1,360.) There are numerous reasons why corruption is so pervasive in Chicago, many of which have roots in the city’s complicated history. But one particular institutional feature of Chicago city government appears to play a particularly important role: the system of so-called “aldermanic privilege” that allows local municipal representatives, known as aldermen, to operate their districts like discrete fiefdoms.

Chicago is divided into 50 political wards, each of which elects an alderman to represent the ward in City Council. Chicago differs from most other cities because an alderman can control virtually every aspect of zoning, licenses, and permitting within his or her ward. If, for example, a business needs a permit to hang a sign over its store or wants a license to sell liquor, the local alderman has to approve it. The aldermen also have broad authority to determine if a city block should be zoned as residential, commercial, or manufacturing, and to change zoning designations about how big a house can be, how many patrons a restaurant can serve, and what types of commercial properties are permitted. These powers, known collectively as aldermanic privilege, are not written anywhere in the city’s charter or ordinances. Rather, aldermanic privilege is a byproduct of Chicago’s longstanding political culture of deference and reciprocity: aldermen tacitly agree not to interfere with each other’s decisions, and the mayor cedes control of local wards to aldermen in exchange for the aldermen giving the mayor a wide berth on city-wide decisions. Some defend this system on the grounds that each alderman knows what is best for his or her own ward. And to be sure, aldermanic privilege can be used for good. But this system also fosters corruption, with alderman frequently using their power to extort bribes from local businesses. A particularly egregious illustration of such abuses came to light last year, when federal prosecutors charged Edward Burke, one of Chicago’s longest serving and most powerful alderman, with extortion and related offenses in connection with Burke’s alleged shakedown of local businesses in exchange for licensing and building permits. But Burke is hardly unique.

What can the city do about this problem? Last year, in part in reaction to the Burke Scandal, Mayor Lori Lightfoot successfully ran for mayor on a campaign that called for fighting corruption and ending aldermanic privilege. Mayor Lightfoot followed through shortly after her inauguration, issuing an executive order that stripped aldermen of their authority over permits and licensing decisions, and instructing city departments to stop deferring to aldermen’s wishes. The City Council also passed Mayor Lightfoot’s ethics package, which, among other things, gave Chicago’s inspector general greater powers to investigate aldermen, and banned alderman from having any outside employment that poses a conflict of interest.

This is a good start, but it’s insufficient to root out aldermanic corruption. Succeeding in that endeavor requires more fundamental reforms to Chicago city government. Two such reforms, individually or in combination, might help achieve this end:

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