Supreme Court: "Reopened retrial due to unconstitutionality of sentencing provisions cannot review criminal facts"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The Supreme Court has ruled that in a retrial opened after the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the legal provision applied by a judge in sentencing, the facts of the crime cannot be re-examined.

The Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Ahn Cheol-sang) announced on the 6th that it upheld the original ruling sentencing former Monuel CEO Park Hong-seok, who was indicted for violating the Customs Act, to a fine of 100 million won in the appeal of the retrial.

The court stated, "The original court's judgment, which held that the grounds for retrial were limited to the labor camp detention part and only reviewed that part, is justified."

This means that a retrial should be limited to the reasons for which it was opened.

Regarding the original ruling that slightly reduced the labor camp detention period, the court also said, "It is within the court's discretion to decide the length of the labor camp detention period," and found no issues.

Park was arrested and indicted on charges including obtaining illegal loans worth 3.4 trillion won through false export records by inflating the price of home theater computers, and in October 2016, the Supreme Court sentenced him to 15 years in prison and a fine of 100 million won. He was also ordered to serve labor camp detention calculated as 500 days, converting 200,000 won per day if the fine was not paid.

However, after the Supreme Court ruling, when the Constitutional Court declared the legal provision applied in calculating the labor camp detention period unconstitutional, he applied for a retrial in 2018, and the court decided to open the retrial, finding grounds for retrial in the Customs Act violation part.

At that time, the original court applied Article 70 of the Criminal Act, revised in May 2014, when determining Park's labor camp detention period.

However, in October 2017, the Constitutional Court ruled that while Article 70 of the Criminal Act, which sets the minimum labor camp detention period, was constitutional, Paragraph 1 of Article 2 of the Criminal Act's Supplementary Provisions, which retroactively applied this provision to crimes committed before the law's enforcement date, violated the principle of non-retroactivity of punishment and was therefore unconstitutional.

Accordingly, the court accepted Park's application, opened the retrial, and reduced the labor camp detention period to "the period calculated by converting 250,000 won per day" (400 days) when the fine was not paid.

Park claimed innocence for some of the charges related to the Customs Act violation during the retrial, but the court did not review them at all, stating that they were not subject to retrial.

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