Constitutional Court: "Using Others' Chargers in Study Rooms Is Not Theft"... Suspension of Prosecution Canceled

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-yoon] The Constitutional Court has ruled that the act of using someone else's phone charger in a reading room, mistaking it for a shared charger, cannot be considered theft.

On the 15th, the Constitutional Court announced that it unanimously decided to cancel the disposition in a constitutional complaint filed by Mr. A, who had received a non-prosecution disposition on theft charges.

In February 2018, Mr. A was given a non-prosecution disposition on charges of taking Mr. B's charger at a reading room in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. Mr. A left the reading room after putting his own charger in his desk drawer upon receiving a call from his mother, but was charged with theft. The reading room had seats divided into free seats and designated seats, and Mr. A was using a free seat at the time.

Mr. A filed a constitutional complaint claiming, "I mistook the charger for a shared charger plugged into the free seat, and the non-prosecution disposition by the prosecution violated my right to pursue happiness."

The Constitutional Court stated, "It is possible that Mr. A, who was using the reading room for the second time, mistakenly thought the desk with the phone charger plugged in was a free seat, not a designated seat," and "If the charger was plugged into such a seat, it is also fully recognized that he could have misunderstood it as a charger provided for shared use in the reading room and used it arbitrarily."

The Court explained, "Since the place where Mr. A left the charger was the drawer of a free seat desk, it was in a state where it could be collected by the reading room manager, so it was not transferred under Mr. A's possession."

As the Constitutional Court ruled the non-prosecution disposition unconstitutional, the prosecution will reinvestigate the case and decide whether to prosecute again.

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