Former principal and department head acquitted again on appeal over alleged admissions score manipulation at specialized high school

[Financial News] A former principal and a school official charged with obstructing business by ordering evaluators to arbitrarily alter scores during the admissions process at a specialized high school in Seoul were acquitted again on appeal.
According to legal sources on the 16th, the Seoul Northern District Court’s Criminal Appeals Division 3, presided over by Judge Heo Myeongsan, upheld the lower court’s acquittal of Han, the former principal of A High School in Seoul’s Seongbuk District, and Park, the school’s former head of external relations, who had been indicted on charges of obstructing business and fabricating and using public electronic records. It dismissed the prosecutor’s appeal.
They were indicted on charges of ordering evaluators to adjust a particular applicant’s scores during the admissions process for the 2021 academic year.
The appellate panel noted that the first-instance court had heard witnesses and conducted other relevant proceedings, and found no fault with its ruling. The panel said, “There are some doubts, but it cannot be concluded that the defendants’ positions or conduct exerted coercive influence,” and ruled that it was difficult to find that their actions amounted to obstruction of business.
The Prosecution Office alleged that Han and the others instructed evaluators at admissions review meetings to lower a particular applicant’s score because of the applicant’s poor appearance, or to adjust the scores of applicants accepted to popular departments in order to fill the enrollment quotas of less popular departments.
However, in February, the first-instance court acquitted them, saying the teachers appeared to have jointly reviewed applicants’ scores at the time to fill the quotas of departments that had not received enough applicants. The court’s reasoning was that it was difficult to conclude that scores had been changed abnormally at the direction of the defendants, including Han.
The Prosecution Office appealed, arguing that the first-instance ruling involved factual errors and a misinterpretation of the law. At the closing hearing held in September, it sought prison terms of two years for Han and one year for Park.
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