'Light Punishment' for Negligent Military Doctors and Legal Officers

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] The Ministry of National Defense has been found to impose 'light punishments' on military doctors and military legal officers who have shown serious negligence in duty. Despite habitual violations of commuting hours or improper use of military golf courses, the disciplinary committee has been lowering the severity of punishments.

According to data submitted by the Ministry of National Defense to Hong Young-pyo, a member of the National Defense Committee of the National Assembly from the Democratic Party of Korea, the Ministry's Inspector General's Office conducted a full survey of 2,951 military doctors and military legal officers last February and detected negligence in duty in 237 cases, accounting for 8%. The cases included violations such as non-compliance with working hours and improper use of military golf courses.

However, the Ministry of National Defense only disciplined 21 individuals, less than 9% of those detected. Moreover, among the initial 21 disciplined, 5 had their punishments reduced to warnings at the respective military disciplinary committee stages. For repeated violations of commuting hours, reasons such as insufficient childcare time or long-distance commuting were cited to reduce the severity of the punishment. The punishments were inconsistent. A military doctor belonging to the Ministry of National Defense Investigation Headquarters who violated working hours 79 times received a reprimand, while a military doctor from the Military Security Support Command who violated 18 times received a pay reduction.

Representative Hong pointed out that the proportion of detected legal officers is significantly lower compared to military doctors, stating, "In the case of legal officers, disciplinary records during military service act as a limiting factor for obtaining lawyer qualifications after discharge," and added, "Service management should be strengthened to ensure no exceptions in the faithful fulfillment of military duties."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.