Justice in time

The Supreme Court made the right decision to complete court proceedings for election law violation cases within six months. However, this is not the first time that the judiciary emphasized the need to weed out those who get elected in corrupt and illegal ways at an early date. We hope the court remains faithful to its commitment this time.

The directive, issued by Chief Justice Lee Yong-hun, calls for each of the lower, appeals and supreme courts to deliver a ruling on any illegal electioneering cases within two months, which means six months should be the maximum period between the indictment and the final ruling.

The judiciary has general guidelines that give the lower court six months, and the appeals and top courts three months each to make rulings. But those are guidelines and are not compulsory. As a consequence, the guidelines were not strictly enforced. It was not uncommon for it to take two to three years before a final ruling was made on election law violation cases.

As a result, governors, mayors and councilors who committed crimes serious enough to invalidate their election were actually allowed to continue in their duties as the head of a local government or as a legislator, jobs to which they should not have been elected to in the first place.

A fair, yet swift court decision on illegal election cases is all the more necessary because the number of offenses is growing rapidly ahead of the May 31 polls. The Supreme Prosecutor's Office said as of May 1, it had netted a total of 1,415 people on charges of violating election laws and detained 68 of them. That is more than double the figure compared to the same period in the last local elections four years ago.

Despite a tough crackdown on illegal electioneering by the election watchdog and law-enforcement authorities, the smart or lucky ones will go on to win seats in the election. Which is why the court should try to complete the trials on election law violators as quickly as possible. There is one more thing that needs to be done to keep wrongdoers away from elected offices - that is to extend the unreasonably short 180-day statute of limitations on election law violation cases.

2006.05.05