Government efforts to eradicate so-called social evil are not and must not be aimed at punishing those who made mistakes or simply followed orders in the past but should focus on uprooting unjust policies and practices, President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday.
"As I have repeatedly stressed, the goal of rooting out social evil is aimed at addressing unfair and unjust policies, institutions and practices, not punishing individual government officials," the president said in a Cabinet meeting at his office Cheong Wa Dae.
"Therefore, prosecuting those who have clearly committed illegal acts may be inevitable, but those who did wrong due to mistakes in policies must not be subject to prosecution," Moon added, according to Cheong Wa Dae pool reports.
President Moon Jae-in (Yonhap)
Moon's remarks come amid apparently growing public criticism against the ongoing criminal investigations and trials of former presidents -- Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye -- and their top aides.
Lee was formally indicted earlier this week on various counts of corruption charges while Park was given a 24-year prison term for corruption charges that removed her from office.
The president continues to enjoy record high approval ratings, but the latest survey conducted last week by local pollster Realmeter showed that his rating dipped to a four-week low of 68.1 percent, which also marked the first on-week drop in four weeks.
The president sought to ease apparently growing concerns among government officials over possible prosecution, noting that they may have simply followed orders.
"There may be cases where we may have to hold policymakers responsible for serious mistakes in their policies, but we should not hold responsible mid or low-ranking officials who simply followed government policies then," he was quoted as saying.
"I ask each government ministry to clearly announce such a stance so their officials will not feel unnecessary anxiety," he added, according to the pool reports.
Turning to other issues, the president rebuked the government for the recent confusion over waste recycling caused by local recyclers' refusal to pick up plastic waste.
Moon insisted that the government should have anticipated such a problem as China, the world's largest importer of plastic waste, announced plans to ban plastic waste imports in July 2017. China's import ban went into effect at the start of this year.
The president called for efforts to come up with a fundamental solution, which he said was to reduce use of plastic products.
"Each country across the globe is making various policy efforts to reduce use of plastic, which causes environmental contamination. Our country, on the other hand, currently fails to recognize the problem, with no adequate measures in place to address the issue while being No. 1 in the world in terms of per capita plastic consumption," he said.
"We, therefore, must take this opportunity to comprehensively rearrange our waste-related policies," the president said. (Yonhap)
