The law that drew the most media attention recently was the enactment and entry into force of the Kim Young-ran Act. People demand and expect that public officials, when carrying out public duties, act not for private gain but as servants devoted to the whole nation, achieving the public purposes that administration pursues. Accordingly, officials bear the responsibility and duty to perform the state's specialized work more efficiently and to protect the public interest. Contrary to these expectations, however, corruption by officials who fail to handle their work fairly has not yet been rooted out. According to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Korea ranks 37th, a relatively low position compared with other advanced countries. This shows that because our society is more tolerant of solicitations and entertainment than many advanced countries, rooting out public corruption is very difficult. To tackle this problem actively, the need to strengthen punishment for solicitation and receipt of money and goods emerged. The Kim Young-ran Act is an example of a legal means of preventing corruption in public office in Korea, and it has great significance in a modern society where corruption is widespread. In the main body, I will therefore examine the Kim Young-ran Act, focusing on its legislative process and content, look at the various controversies and points for improvement, and give my own opinion.

To understand the Kim Young-ran Act in detail, I think we first need to look at Kim Young-ran herself. Achieving social success at a young age, she became the first woman Supreme Court justice and won wide public support for working directly to protect the rights of women and all minorities. She later took office as chair of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission in 2010. In 2012 she proposed a bill to prevent all corruption by public officials, which became the origin of today's Kim Young-ran Act. The official name of the law is the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, and it provides that an official who receives money, goods or entertainment worth 1 million won or more from a person unrelated to his or her duties can be criminally punished even without any quid pro quo.

On August 22, 2012, former commission chair Kim Young-ran presented the draft that formed the basis of the act. At that point it showed only the general content and purpose of the law to be enacted rather than its concrete form. As a result, the content of improper solicitation was not specified in detail and the ultimate purpose of the receipt of money to be punished was not defined, so it covered a very broad range under which the parties could be punished as long as a concrete act of receiving money existed. On July 29, 2013 the bill was formally submitted to the National Assembly, but it was quietly buried without becoming the subject of active debate. Then, with the Sewol ferry disaster on April 16, 2014, the Kim Young-ran Act rose to the surface again.

Note: Punishment for receiving more than 1 million won at a time applies regardless of whether it is related to the official's duties, and the value limits in the paper are those in force when the law took effect in 2016. A decree amendment in force from January 17, 2018 lowered congratulatory and condolence money to 50,000 won (100,000 won for wreaths), raised the limit for agricultural, livestock and fishery gifts to 100,000 won, set public officials' outside lecture fees within a 400,000 won cap determined by each institution, and set fees for journalists and private school staff at 1 million won per hour. From August 27, 2024, the limit for meals was raised from 30,000 won to 50,000 won. The provisions covering journalists and private school staff were upheld by the Constitutional Court on July 28, 2016.