Livelihoods committee: “No basis to suspend President Lee’s trials” ... files complaint against Cho Hee-dae and others

[Financial News] Kim Soon Hwan, secretary-general of the Committee for Measures to Improve Ordinary People’s Livelihoods, filed a complaint against seven judicial officials, including Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae, over the suspension of President Lee Jae Myung’s criminal trials. The committee alleges that there is no legal basis for suspending the five criminal trials that have been halted since Lee took office, and that the judicial officials who stopped them neglected their duties.
On the 22nd, before being questioned as the complainant at Seocho Police Station in Seoul, Kim told reporters, “I believe the five trials currently on hold violate the Constitution and the law. They have been suspended despite there being no legal basis for delaying them, so I filed a complaint.”
Earlier, on the 28th of last month, the committee filed a complaint with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency against seven people, including Chief Justice Cho, National Court Administration chief Noh Gyeong-pil, and five senior judges on panels handling President Lee’s cases, on suspicion of abuse of authority and dereliction of duty, among other offenses.
Those named in the complaint include Lee Jin-gwan, a senior judge at Seoul Central District Court; Koo Hoe-geun and Lee Seung-hwan, senior judges at Seoul High Court; and Song Byeong-hun and Jang Seok-jun, senior judges at Suwon District Court.
The five cases the committee has challenged involve alleged development corruption in Daejang-dong and Baekhyeon-dong and alleged sponsorship payments to Seongnam Football Club; instigation of perjury; violation of the Public Official Election Act; Ssangbangwool remittances to North Korea; and alleged misuse of a Gyeonggi Province corporate card. The trials have been suspended since President Lee took office amid questions over whether the presidential immunity from prosecution under Article 84 of the Constitution applies.
The committee’s position is that Article 84 of the Constitution only restricts new criminal prosecutions during a president’s term and does not provide grounds to suspend trials that began before the president took office. It also argues that the suspensions do not fall under the grounds for staying court proceedings under the Criminal Procedure Act and therefore infringe the constitutionally guaranteed right to a speedy trial.
Kim said, “Under Article 27 of the Constitution, all citizens of the Republic of Korea have the right to a speedy trial. If a particular person is receiving preferential treatment, it can only be seen as preferential treatment.”
He continued, “The five cases began before Lee Jae Myung became president. If immunity from prosecution is applied on the grounds that he became president, the legal logic upheld until now will be broken.”
He stressed in particular that the legal basis for suspending the trials must be clearly stated. Kim said, “Even under Article 306 of the Criminal Procedure Act, there is no basis for stopping the trials. If trials are suspended without a legal basis while ordinary citizens are told to obey the law, on what basis could citizens be held accountable if they refused to stand trial?”
He also raised the responsibility of Chief Justice Cho and the judges on the panels. “Are Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae and the judges on the panels neglecting their duties and abusing their authority? They should disclose the grounds on which they suspended the trials,” he said. He added, “The higher the position one holds, the more one must take responsibility for what one has said. Chief Justice Cho and President Lee must both act in accordance with the Constitution and the law, as they themselves have argued.”
[email protected] Lee Dong-hyuk Reporter