Today is Liberation Day in South Korea. This is the anniversary of the day that Japan surrendered to the United States at the end of World War II and South Korea once again became a free and independent country. 

This is also a day on which the president of South Korea often issues pardons to many of those who have run afoul of the law. These pardons have often been controversial because some recipients have been close confidants of the president or powerful members of South Korean society or both.

Thus members of the chaebol families have received pardons for crimes ranging from tax evasion to embezzlement to assault. Often these pardons were justified on the grounds that the individuals were too important to the South Korean economy to be jailed.

However, pardons were also given to millions of average citizens who had their driving licenses suspended or revoked for serious or excessive violations of the traffic laws.

And while past pardons of chaebol leaders and close confidants to the president have been problematic there is an arguably greater socio-economic impact to the average citizen in South Korea from the pardons given to repeat traffic offenders.

This impact exists because of the regularity with which these pardons are granted, approximately once every three years, combined with the sheer numbers of drivers who are pardoned, an average of over 4 million each time.

In the six pardons that have occurred since 1995 over 24 million drivers have been pardoned for traffic offenses. Almost 4 million who had their license revoked have been able to obtain a new license, and around 20 million have had black marks expunged from their records allowing them to avoid suspension.

All of these drivers have then been free to continue the same driving behaviors that first resulted in the revocation or threatened suspension. While the overall statistics do not track individual drivers it is highly unlikely that in a country of 50 million people those 24 million drivers were unique.

It is more likely that the same 4 to 5 million drivers were repeatedly violating the traffic laws. Thus it can safely be assumed that the presidential pardons have been successful at returning to South Korean roads the worst and the most dangerous of South Korean drivers.

And the identity of these dangerous drivers is clear to everyone who drives a car or who walks anywhere near a street in South Korea.

On a regular basis they can be seen running red lights or switching lanes without regard for other vehicles or pedestrians. They are the ones weaving home in a drunken stupor on Friday and Saturday nights and the ones in their family sedans flashing their lights on the highways as though they were driving a Porsche on the Autobahn.

They are the taxis who believe the roads and sidewalks are their private offices and the aggressive and self-centered cretins who relentlessly imperil pedestrians legally crossing the road.

Thus it should come as no surprise that traffic statistics reveal that within six months after one of these presidential pardons traffic accident rates increase substantially.

In the 12 months that followed each prior presidential pardon traffic accidents increased by 7 to 10 percent and the cost of these accidents to South Korean society was estimated at over 2 billion U.S. dollars for each of those years.

The effect of these pardons has been to entirely eliminate the gains in traffic safety that occurred when reckless or incompetent drivers were legally removed from the road.

The traffic fatality rate in South Korea has continued to significantly exceed every other member of the OECD except Greece and the pedestrian fatality rate in South Korea has continued to exceed all of the OECD members. After the last pardon in 2009 a number of insurance industry groups and NGOs criticized President Lee for using the pardons for cheap political gains while ignoring the economic and social damage placed on citizens and society.

Thus it is promising for drivers and pedestrians in South Korea that last week the president’s office stated that for the second year in a row there would be no pardons. Perhaps President Lee was sincere in his recent national radio address about creating a safe society.

And while many in South Korea may have thought about the impact on the politically well-connected of a moratorium on pardons, it is more important to the average citizen that those drivers who have had their license revoked or suspended do not wind up back out on the highway.

Hopefully in the future South Korean presidents will refrain from short-circuiting the safety goals of the traffic laws with pardons and allow those drivers whose licenses have been revoked or suspended to return to the roads only after they have satisfied the legal and educational requirements for reinstatement.

By Daniel Fiedler

Daniel Fiedler is an associate professor of law at Wonkwang University and holds an honorary position as an international legal adviser for North Jeolla Province. ― Ed.