Sex, lies and lawmakers

The unprecedented rape allegation involving a first-term lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri Party is shocking even by the loose moral standards of the conservative majority party. Even more astonishing was the police's unwarranted leniency in clearing Rep. Shim Hag-bong of rape charges after a hurried, hush-hush probe. Police officers cite the change in the description of events by the victim, a 40-something insurance saleswoman who initially accused Rep. Shim of raping her but later said the act was "not entirely against my will." The police's judgment is somewhat understandable considering that sexual attack cases are hard to prosecute without the victims' accusation.  What we cannot understand is the apparent reluctance of the regional police to get to the bottom of this glaring scandal. In the past 10 days or so after the complaint was filed, officers summoned the victim three times but called in the suspect just once for "two hours" of questioning.  Before concluding the encounter was consensual sex, they did not even investigate why the woman changed her testimony after meeting the alleged rapist. Various circumstances show Rep. Shim threatened, or at least cajoled, the victim into withdrawing her charge. There was even testimony from a third party that Shim knelt down before the woman and promised to give 30 million won in an out-of-court settlement.  The police may be free from blame, legally, but reaffirmed the popular suspicion that the application of the law and implementation of justice differs here depending on who is involved. It is heartening in this regard to hear the prosecution has decided to reopen the case. We hope prosecutors will leave no stone unturned, including how the influence of a sitting lawmaker could turn an initial no into an eventual yes from the socially weak victim.  Equally incomprehensible was the silence of the Saenuri Party's female lawmakers who used to take issue with far smaller acts of harassment, such as off-color jokes, by their political opponents. One explanation is these women politicians might have been infected by the "macho" culture of the rightist party, whose members shrug off frequent sexual scandals, saying, "It's not as if somebody died." It's a small surprise than that in the past decade or so, 19 Saenuri lawmakers, from its chairman on down to secretary general and even a speaker, have been involved in one sex-related scandal or another.  A group of the party's freshman lawmakers was right when they called for kicking out Shim ― who had the sexual encounter while his committee was holding a meeting ― not just from the party, but from the National Assembly. In a most glaring irony, the party's leadership named him as chairman of a local chapter's ethics committee on the day of the incident.  The Saenuri Party must follow the calls of its junior lawmakers and go further to enact a law that drastically toughens the punishment for sexual crimes by people in power, which also include teachers, professors, police officers and prosecutors.  Nothing less would extricate the New Frontier Party from the ignominious label of "Sex Frontier Party."