Acting President Goh Declares “Proper Measures” Against Collective Actions.

Facing increasing collective actions taken by groups of public servants--such as the Korean Teachers and Education Workers and the Truths Commission on Suspicious Deaths issuing statements against impeachment--Acting President Goh Kun said yesterday that “proper measures should be taken following inspection of investigating whether they violated laws.”

Acting President Goh, in particular, ordered Education Minister Ahn Byung-young that “after examining whether the ‘Statement to Nullify the Impeachment’ issued by the Korean Teachers and Education Workers breaches laws such as election law, law for public servants, and law regarding operation and establishment of teachers’ union, if anything is proved to violate them, stern measures must be put to them in accordance with orders of these laws.”

Meanwhile, regarding the National Union of Public Servants’ declared support for the Democratic Labor Party, Acting President Goh decided to take a wait-and-see attitude because, regarding this issue, Government Administration and Home Affairs Minister Huh Sung-kwan is to give orders to local administrations.

Today, Acting President Goh is scheduled to convene a meeting to deal with national pending issues and related policies, where he is expected to come up with countermeasures for recent public servant collective actions.

Yesterday, at a briefing made by Han Duck-soo, chief secretary of Cabinet operations, he said, “Acting President Goh maintains a strong will for fair management of the upcoming general election and underlines political neutrality of public servants. If anything, by dampening such initiatives as they arise, he will take strong actions in accordance with law and principle, and exert all kinds of authority.” Also, he added, “Even though it is controversial to say declaring opposition against the impeachment is a politically intended action, they have at least breached the public servant law which prohibits collective actions by public servants.

Jeong-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com