In a jointly administered post-unification
scenario, the South will be responsible for supplanting the North’s
organization, personnel, and finance. North Korea should learn from the German
example on this issue. In order for the South Korean government to effectively
take over the central agencies and functions of the North’s government, the
South will need to take over all the relevant departments and install others.
In the beginning of this joint administrative period, it will be necessary to
send Southern government officials to take the lead in all supplementary and
regional departments. Additionally, in order to build and equip the local
autonomous regional government structures, the South Koreans who will head up
those divisions will need support. When the system for appointing government
officials in North Korea is settled and top quality leadership is put in place,
gradually, North Koreans should be invited to take up more important positions.
The largest issue remaining is whether
certain North Korean cadres should be re-hired. Eastern Europe suffered the
same problem after the Cold War ended. They asked themselves, “Should we use
the old government officials and cadres to help us rebuild? Or, should we bring
up new personnel? And if we do use the old talent, to what extent do we use
them?” It needs to be decided if former cadres will be screened for the
purposes of possible re-hire in post-unification North Korea. For help in
answering this difficult question, we can turn to examples in the Czech
Republic’s ‘Qualification Screening Program’ and Germany’s unification treaty.
The fundamental personnel policy of
Germany’s unification treaty with regard to public officers in East Germany was
to limit the amount who continued to serve while abolishing the existing
administrative structure. During this transition period, officers placed on a
waiting list for more than six months were naturally phased out and fired. The
reasons for the firings can be classified as personal inconsistencies,
professional incompetence, redundancies, and dismantling of their workplace.
The firing of workers who had a history of being investigated by the State
Security Department for breaching professional code of conduct, violating human
rights, etc were classified separately.
Except for the Czech Republic’s military
and national security sector, workers in all sectors were screened according to
a “Qualification Evaluation Law,” which rehired employees after a period
of re-education and re-training. According to this law, all personnel who
served as an upper level Communist Party cadre, secret police, or were
otherwise collaborating with the regime were disallowed from working in the
press, the universities, or state government for a period of five years. Those
found to be in the nomenklatura after an investigation performed by the
Secretary of the Interior were expelled from public office. Elected officials,
on the other hand, were not held to the the standards of the qualification
evaluation law. But if any government employees found to be complicit in crimes
violating human rights or assisting the State Security Service were
automatically expelled and excluded from state service.
It will also be necessary to establish a
system of re-education for North Korean government workers. In the case of
Eastern European nations, it was found that a democratic system supported the
re-education of government workers. East German officials had the difficult
task of administering a re-education program that trained workers to become
accustomed to a system that was totally new and different from what the
employees were accustomed to, The new political structure supported the
framework of democracy, a transparent legal system, and a market economy
through bureaucratic, constitutional, tax, and financial methods. In North
Korea’s case, how will the transition be facilitated?
In order to deal with the past, it will be
necessary to thoroughly investigate the true situation and to discern
responsible parties. Introspection will be essential in post-unification North
Korea. By reflecting on the past, it becomes easier to internalize important
historical lessons. It will be important for South Korea to avoid amplifying
the trauma and suffering of North Korean residents. This can be accomplished by
pursuing a settlement system that appropriately deals with the past.
The main thrust of this settlement system
will be in punishing guilty parties and coming to the aid of victims. To punish
the guilty parties, it will be necessary to find those who aided and abetted
the maintenance of the illegal political system and then use judicial proceedings
to punish the criminals and recover any funds that were acquired through
illegal means. To assist the victims, those who were victims of human rights
abuses will need to be rehabilitated. Their lost property and honor will need
to be restored. Those who suffered damages to their security or personal
welfare will need to be compensated with freedom and material remuneration. The
settlement cases can be divided into personal and material cases. Offenders who
are found to be complicit in crimes against human rights will need to be
punished and their victims rescued. In material cases, land, property, and
businesses forfeited by the regime will need to be re-distributed in a fair
way.
It would be wise to refer to Germany’s
example when the settlement system is being created. In East Germany,
perpetrators were not punished with violence and vindictiveness. Rather, their
cases were addressed according to the appropriate legal statutes in a way that
promoted rule of law. These statutes contained restrictions on said
punishments. Systems of criminal law in constitutional states are designed to
address personal criminal offenses so they are sometimes ill equipped to handle
political crimes that occurred in other countries. That is why there was a
clear proviso in the unification treaty that illegal acts would be punished
according to the East German legal system. If the East German perpetrators were
punished according to the principles of a constitutional nation, there wouldn’t
have been much of a problem in assisting victims, but there would have been a
limit in the efficacy of addressing guilty parties.
The legal systems of free, democratic,
constitutional nations are mainly set up to deal with personal offenders.
That’s why it was not suitable to deal with offenders who broke a very
different kind of law than is present in said liberal democracies.
Additionally, those being punished for personal offenses who were acting in
accordance with East Germany’s laws became a difficult legal issue. There was also
the complaint that the scope of the penalties was too limited. In general,
however, the legal proceedings did not feature big conflicts and operated
smoothly. In the case of North Korea as well, settlement proceedings should be
firmly rooted in the legal principles of the constitution and be dedicated to
determining the truth and identifying guilty parties.
The process of settlement will also require
the dismantling of the Communist government structure. The process of razing
that system and dealing with the establishment/elite are integrally related
tasks. Dealing with the establishment is one crucial part of the process of
transitioning to democracy. The settlement of the establishment has the power
to make or break the entire process of democratization and North Korea’s
economic revival. That’s because if the establishment class isn’t appropriately
dealt with, the chance that the overall reforms will fail is large. If you look
at the regime change of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the nations that
successfully handled their pasts were the nations that emerged as economically
vibrant democracies.
Central Asian nations that failed to deal
with the establishment class of their Communist Parties were unable to
successfully transitions to democracy. The Communist Party was able to regain a
hold of political power in the midst of these reforms, monopolize state owned
enterprises, and retain authority. These Central Asian nations were able to
break away from the yoke of dictatorships but were unable to emerge as
democracies. They continue to struggle with suboptimal governments dominated by
oligarchies. We can classify these nations as anti-democracies or autocracies.
That is why a unified Korea will need to use settlements to break down the
North Korean establishment’s hold on political and economic power and ensure
that they are unable to make a revival in the wake of unification.
