PERSONNEL POLICY 663In no case was an official to be allowed a transfer to evade impeachment except
when the censorate found that he was unqualified for his post. Even if accused
of wrongdoing by the censorate, he would not be allowed to leave his duties unless
the Office of Inspector-General formally demanded his interrogation.
Overz.ealous and Cowardly Censors. Yulgok argued that this phenomenon was
not altogether the fault of the ordinary officials because it was brought on by
overzealous demands of the censors who demanded that ordinary officials main-
tain the high moral standards of the sages of remote antiquity in personal as well
as official matters. If officials erred in the slightest detail, censors would flood
the king with accusations of malfeasance, forcing many officials to request leaves
of absence or other pretexts as the only available means of defense.
For that matter some censors found that the constant expectation that they would
impeach any and all transgressors induced them to request a transfer on the
grounds of illness to save themselves from offending their colleagues or supe-
riors. Thanks to the prestige of their office, they werc routinely granted their
request. and they were nevcr held liable for shirking their duty. Once the crisis
had passed, they were readily reappointed to another censorate position.
Yulgok had criticized the Korean censorate by contrasting their display of cow-
ardice in the face of duty with famous censors in Tang times like Yang Ch'eng,
who held his censorate post for ten years without interruption, and Han Yu, who
was impeached for submitting an essay against factional officials but never once
used an excuse to escape his office. Even greater was the efficacy of remon-
strance officials in ancient China when each felt free to speak his mind. But in
Korea the proper function of censors to act as a watchdog over the moral stan-
dards of officials was lost because of the careerist desires of censors to avoid
criticism and antagonism. Censors even sent messengers to show copies of pro-
posed criticism to any target of attack or impeachment hefore presenting it as a
formal memorial to the king, and they only suhmitted it formally if they
received approval in advance from the presumed violator'
Censors were not only afraid to speak out as individuals, thcy also collectively
opposed any misfit who wanted to express his own views contrary to the wishes
of the others. The majority of the Office of Special Counselors (Hongmun'gwan),
an extremely prestigious offiee which had functioned in practice as a de facto
agency of remonstrance and surveillance for years, pressured all recalcitrant indi-
viduals to conform to their views by signing a joint memorial of protest, ohvi-
ously to protect themselves against trouhlemakers who insisted on speaking their
own minds. In some instances, a special counselor who disagreed with the major-
ity was allowed to excuse himself from signing the joint mcmorial but only if he
agreed not to utter a contrary view! Yulgok sought to end this practicc by refus-
ing to transfer censors, prohibiting the use of illness as an excuse, and permit-
ting each censor to express his own views against pressure for unanimityY
Yu Hyongwon also ohserved that censorate behavior had taken a turn for the
worse during the reign of King Chungj6ng (r. 1506-44). As the monarch who
assumed thc throne in 1506 after deposing the paranoid, archtyrant King