We do not know if South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has already made up his mind but it must be a difficult question for him to decide whether to include former Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee in the customary Christmas special pardon. Appeals for the clearance of the criminal conviction of Korea's undisputed number one industrialist are being piled on the president's table from the nation's business and sports leaders.

The eager petitioners included Cho Yang-ho, chairman of Korean Air and a co-chair of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics Bidding Committee; Gangwon Province Governor Kim Jin-sun, whose administration is making the Olympic bid for the third time; and Sohn Kyung-shik, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a major supporting organisation.

President Lee, true to his reputation as a business-friendly chief executive, has already made a precedent of a sort of giving special pardon to convicted conglomerate heads. Hyundai Motor chairman Chung Mong-koo, SK Group head Chey Tae-won and Hanhwa chairman Kim Seung-youn were included in the 74 businesspeople who were granted amnesty in August 2008. At that time, however, his spokesman made a seemingly unnecessary definition that the pardon was for convictions made before Lee's inauguration in February 2008.

Lee Kun-hee had his punishment finalised by the Supreme Court in August this year with a three-year jail term suspended for five years after long trials on charges including illegal bond trading and breach of trust. He resigned as Samsung chairman in April 2008 and voluntarily relinquished his IOC membership three months later. A presidential pardon will help him get reinstated in the IOC and his return to the Olympic governing body will give PyeongChang's bidding effort a big boost.

Equally important is allowing Lee to return to the Samsung boardroom where he can steer the growth of the world's electronics leader in the global market. Yet, the question of legal stability is also a grave issue in governing a nation. The president has a few weeks' time to prepare his own appeal to public opinion with a convincing argument that supports the national interest.