Another Postponed Trial of Cho Kuk... Consolidated with Baek Won-woo and Park Hyung-cheol

Second Postponement Following Last Month
Trial Not Held Even Once in Over Two Months
Despite Need for Timely Handling of Case Classification

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The first trial of former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk, who was indicted on charges including his children's admission corruption and allegations of halting the inspection of former Busan City Deputy Mayor for Economic Affairs Yoo Jae-soo, has been postponed again.

According to the court on the 7th, the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 21 (Chief Judge Kim Miri) postponed the first pretrial hearing of former Minister Cho, scheduled for the 12th, to the 20th of next month. This measure was taken due to the consolidation of the case with the cases of former Senior Secretary to the President for Civil Affairs Baek Won-woo and former Anti-Corruption Secretary Park Hyung-cheol, who were indicted in connection with the allegations of halting the inspection of Yoo Jae-soo.

Originally, the court planned to hold former Minister Cho's first trial on the 29th of last month, but after deciding to consolidate the case with the one in which the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office indicted him for the allegations of halting Yoo Jae-soo's inspection, the trial was postponed by two weeks. Thus, after postponing the verdict once to consolidate former Minister Cho's cases, the court decided this time to hold the trial by consolidating the inspection halt allegation case itself.

As the trial has been postponed twice, some in the legal community point out that the designation of this case as an "urgent important case" is meaningless. The Seoul Central District Court classified former Minister Cho's case as an urgent case when it was assigned to the Criminal Division 21 of the court last month. It was judged that delays in handling could cause unnecessary disputes.

Typically, cases designated as urgent important cases are prioritized over others, with shorter intervals between hearings, allowing the trial to proceed swiftly. However, former Minister Cho's case has faced a somewhat unusual situation where, nearly three months after the initial indictment, not only has a formal trial not been held, but even a pretrial hearing to plan the proceedings has not taken place.

Earlier, on December 31 of last year, former Minister Cho was indicted without detention on 11 charges including bribery and violation of the Public Official Ethics Act related to his children's admission corruption allegations. On the 17th of last month, he was additionally brought to trial on charges of abuse of power related to the allegations of halting Yoo Jae-soo's inspection.

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