Court Recess Starts Tomorrow... Stronger Cases to Follow After It Ends

Seoul Central District Court / Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] Courts across the country will enter a recess period starting on the 27th. The duration is autonomously determined by each court, but generally, they take a break for about 2 to 3 weeks in line with the schedule of the Seoul Central District Court and the Seoul High Court, the largest courts nationwide. During this period, the judicial panels have the leisure to review the cases they have been hearing. However, this leisure is short-lived. This year, major cases will follow one after another without a break immediately after the recess.

According to the courts on the 26th, from the next day, the Seoul Central District Court will enter a two-week summer recess, and the Seoul High Court will enter a three-week recess. During this period, most trials will not be held except for urgent or significant cases. Only application cases such as injunctions, criminal case hearings for detained defendants requiring prompt attention, and pre-arrest suspect interrogations (warrant hearings) will proceed as usual.

Even the Seoul Central District Court and Seoul High Court, which were bustling with all kinds of case-related parties during the recess in previous years, will be in a 'genuine' recess mode this year for the first time in a while. Until last year, major defendants in the 'state affairs manipulation' and 'judicial manipulation' cases were on trial in detention, leading to concentrated hearings, but this year, most have been released on bail or sentenced, so related trial schedules have not been set. The judicial panels in charge of these cases are expected to substitute their duties by reviewing records and organizing the progress of the trials so far.

Governor Kim Kyung-soo of Gyeongnam Province. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

However, the schedule immediately after the recess is expected to be busier than usual. Trials that have attracted public attention are lined up one after another. At the Seoul High Court, the appellate trial for Gyeongnam Governor Kim Kyung-soo, which has been ongoing for a full 1 year and 5 months after the first trial verdict, will be held. If the presiding panel proceeds with the planned closing arguments in September, the verdict is expected to be delivered around October or November.

At the Seoul Central District Court, trials involving ruling party figures, which had made little progress in the first half of this year, are expected to accelerate. First, the trial for the 'Ulsan Mayor Election Interference Allegation' case, which held its third preparatory hearing on the 24th, is expected to intensify. Since the prosecution has announced plans to indict additional suspects related to this case, the scale of the trial is likely to grow larger than before. The trial of Choi Kang-wook, leader of the Open Democratic Party, which held a continuation hearing the day before, will begin witness examinations at the first trial after the recess. Once the witness examination procedure is completed, closing arguments will proceed, and all hearings are expected to conclude within this year at the earliest.

During the recess, additional large-scale cases under investigation by the prosecution may be filed at the Seoul Central District Court. Representative cases include the Samsung BioLogics accounting fraud and the unfair merger allegations between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries involving Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, the 'media collusion' case for which the prosecution's investigation review committee was held on the same day, and the Optimus fraud case, dubbed the second Lime scandal. If all suspects related to these cases are brought to trial, the pace at the Seoul Central District Court will become even more hectic.

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