September 30 Legislative Report: Improper Solicitation Law's Loopholes a Decade On

Although the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act has been amended eight times over the past decade, the blind spot covering elected public officials and their spouses has never once been touched.

The Act on the Prohibition of Improper Solicitation and Acceptance of Money or Valuables, commonly known as the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, marked its 10th anniversary of implementation on the 28th of this year. During this period, the National Assembly changed the monetary caps on meals, gifts, and other goods seven times and broadened the scope of improper solicitation. Yet the exemption clauses shielding those closest to the center of power remain intact.

Two Loopholes Preserved for a Decade

Current law stipulates that no one may make an improper solicitation of a public official, directly or through a third party, listing 15 prohibited types. The problem lies in the accompanying proviso: acts by elected public officials relaying third parties' grievances or civil complaints for public-interest purposes are not regarded as improper solicitation. This exception, absent from the government's original bill, was inserted during the National Assembly review under the banner of the public interest, and it has never been revised through the eight subsequent amendments.

The spouse issue follows the same structure. A public official who knowingly fails to report that their spouse accepted job-related money or valuables, as well as the person who provided them, are subject to punishment — but the spouse who actually received the goods is not. This reflects objections at the time of the law's enactment that strictly regulating spouses, who were private citizens, would be excessive. Over the past decade, the National Assembly has kept the door closed only where it benefits itself.

Bill to Ban Family Workarounds Emerges

Legislative attempts to narrow the blind spot are coming from the ruling party. Rep. Lee Kang-il of the Democratic Party of Korea sponsored a revision bill to the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act on the 26th of last month. The bill's core is to expand the prohibition on accepting money or valuables from spouses to include parents and children who share a household, as well as siblings and a spouse's direct ancestors or siblings. It would ban these family members from accepting, demanding, or promising money or valuables in connection with a public official's duties, as well as from offering them, with violations subject to punishment.

The aim is to block circumvention schemes that use spouses as a front or family members as conduits. However, the bill limits its scope to relatives who are economically and closely tied to the same household, stopping short of extending to ordinary kinship relations. The remaining task is clear: if the bill merely widens the list of people prohibited from accepting goods, the exemption for elected officials' complaint-relaying and the structure leaving spouses themselves unpunished will remain fully in place.

The Structural Limits of Congress Regulating Itself

The revision history of this law is a textbook case of legislative self-interest at work. Rules directed at ordinary public officials and the private sector — such as adjustments to monetary caps or expansions of coverage — have been frequently overhauled, while provisions touching elected officials and their families were created during the National Assembly's review stage and effectively frozen ever since. It also means there is little impetus for change without bipartisan agreement.

Napoleon Hill said the top of the ladder of success is never crowded, but when it comes to the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, the road to the top has always been blocked. Ten years of amendment records prove it.

Attention is focused on whether Rep. Lee's bill will be referred to the National Assembly's subcommittee on legislation and gain review momentum. Even if the ban on family acceptance passes, it will take follow-up legislation directly addressing the elected-official exemption proviso and the provision leaving spouses unpunished for the controversy over the law's blind spots to genuinely subside. What the law's next decade looks like ultimately depends on whether the National Assembly proves its willingness to regulate itself through legislation.