Jeong Gyeong-sim Trial Panel Completely Replaced... Difficult to Deliver Verdict Within Detention Period

Considerable Time Required for Data Review
Detention Expiry Likely to Extend Beyond May 12

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The new panel of judges assigned to preside over the case of Professor Jeong Gyeong-sim of Dongyang University has been finalized. It is an "equal-status panel" consisting of three chief judges who take turns serving as the presiding judge, without distinction between chief and associate judges. This arrangement was decided after the court held a judges' office allocation committee meeting. With the change in the panel, it is expected that the trial of Professor Jeong's case will take a considerable amount of time until sentencing. Legal circles predict that the trial will not conclude within Professor Jeong's detention period.

According to the Seoul Central District Court on the 20th, the Criminal Division 25, to which Professor Jeong's case was assigned, has newly appointed Chief Judges Kim Sun-hee (26th Judicial Research and Training Institute class), Lim Jeong-yeop (28th class), and Kwon Seong-su (29th class). As the Seoul Central District Court increased the number of equal-status panels from three to five, Professor Jeong's trial panel was also changed to an equal-status panel. Chief Judge Kwon will serve as the lead judge for this case. The new panel will conduct the 5th hearing of Professor Jeong's case on the 27th at the main courtroom of the Lee Law Court.

The case assigned to the new panel involves two matters: the forgery of Dongyang University’s certificate of commendation and allegations of admission bribery and private equity fund irregularities involving Professor Jeong's children. Among these, the admission bribery and private equity fund allegations, for which the prosecution indicted Professor Jeong on November 11 last year, involve a vast amount of evidence, making it difficult to renew the trial procedures until now. Therefore, it is expected that the newly assigned judges will need a significant amount of time to review the records and materials. Depending on the situation, there may be a recess period to understand the proceedings conducted by the previous panel. Consequently, trial delays have become inevitable. There is also speculation that sentencing within Professor Jeong's detention period will be difficult. The detention period expires on May 12, with 82 days remaining as of that date.

Following the change in Professor Jeong's trial panel, the prosecution has again requested the court to conduct the trials of Professor Jeong and former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk together. If this request is accepted, the possibility of Professor Jeong’s trial proceeding without detention will increase. Since the panel will also need to review the records of the consolidated cases, a considerable amount of time will inevitably be required again. Currently, the case involving allegations of family corruption and obstruction of investigation against former Minister Cho is being handled by Criminal Division 21 of the same court, presided over by Chief Judge Kim Mi-ri.

Meanwhile, Chief Judge Kim, who presides over former Minister Cho’s case, was not moved in this office allocation decision. However, four judges responsible for warrants, including Chief Judge Myeong Jae-kwon, who dismissed the arrest warrant for former Minister Cho’s younger brother, were replaced. Starting from the 24th, Chief Judges Kim Dong-hyun, Choi Chang-hoon, Kim Tae-gyun, and Won Jeong-sook will newly preside over the review of whether to issue arrest warrants.

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