I am a former employee who recently resigned from the National Human Rights Commission of Korea. At the time, I was a mere five months away from completing 20 years of continuous service that would have guaranteed me a comfortable retirement as a government official pension recipient. The reason I, a middle-aged man responsible for supporting my family, would throw away my own “iron rice bowl” is due to a simple common-sensical principle: If a public servant is unable to properly perform the duties entrusted to him by the people of South Korea, he or she should not accept taxpayer money. I offer you this advice, at the risk of breaching etiquette, because it appears to me that you have distanced yourself from that common sense.

The preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “It is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression[by the state], that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.” In other words, human rights must be ensured through the rule of law.

Rule of law means that the law must place a check upon state authorities so that they cannot infringe arbitrarily upon human rights. Why am I using precious newspaper space to reiterate this all-too-evident truth? It is because the rule of law has become severely perverted in Korean society today. The expressions that define the rule of law - “guaranteeing basic rights,” “due process,” “over-prohibition” - have become empty concepts in textbooks. They are principles that in our reality lack any validity. State authority is not currently checked by the rule of law. On the contrary, state authority has used the rule of law as a way to disregard democracy and human rights. How could such a reversal have taken place? It is disheartening that even the NHRCK, which should be serving as the last bulwark of human rights, has been incapacitated amid these desperate circumstances.

Mr. Chairperson, the NHRCK has recently been going through a breakup. Some predicted this current crisis, maifested through the joint resignations of the standing commissioners, some time ago. At some point, the NHRCK became silent and turned its back even as a host of serious human rights issues erupted through all areas of society, among them the Yongsan tragedy, the Minerva case, the Park Won-soon case, and the case involving the MBC show “PD Notebook.” You were loath to even have these cases prepared at the working level and brought before the commission. The reasons you have given include that it is “better not to handle cases that aggravate social controversy” and that the commission should engage in “human rights efforts closely connected with people’s lives.”

The reality, however, is that you did not intend to do anything that might go even slightly against the will of the Lee Myung-bak administration. Under these circumstances, it is inevitable that major defects would arise in the standing and role of the NHRCK.

As is emphasized in the Paris Principles, the United Nations guidelines for establishing national human rights institutions, independence from state authority must be regarded as the lifeblood of a human rights commission. When such a commission actively curries favor with the administration in power, can it really be expected to properly discharge the duties entrusted to it? Is It really possible to avoid controversy on any human rights issue confronting Korean society if one is willing to stand up to living power and say difficult things? And when the very freedoms of expression, assembly, and demonstration, things that not only have a direct impact on the realization of citizen sovereignty but could also be called the most basic of the basic rights established by the Constitution, are being stopped in their tracks, is there any human rights issue more intimately connected with citizen lives?