'Arrest Obstruction by Railroad Union' Former Jeon Kyo-jo Chairman Kim Jeong-hoon... What is the Supreme Court's Ruling?

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] The Supreme Court is set to deliver its final ruling on former National Teachers' Union Chairman Kim Jeong-hoon, who was prosecuted for obstructing police officers executing their duties during the arrest of the railway union leadership in 2013.

According to the legal community on the 27th, the Supreme Court's Third Division (Presiding Justice Kim Jae-hyung) will hold the sentencing hearing at 11:15 a.m. for Kim, who was indicted on charges of special obstruction of official duties causing injury.

Kim was prosecuted for allegedly throwing broken glass shards at police officers executing an arrest warrant in front of the Kyunghyang Shinmun building in Jung-gu, Seoul, where the headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions was located, on December 22, 2013, thereby obstructing the execution of the arrest warrant. Investigations revealed that Kim threw glass shards at the police officers after the entrance glass door was broken.

Kim, who faced a prosecution demand of three years, was sentenced in the first trial to one year and six months in prison with a two-year probation. The court ruled that the police entry into the Kyunghyang Shinmun building to execute the arrest warrant was lawful under the Criminal Procedure Act. Regarding Kim's claim of self-defense against unlawful intrusion, the court explained that "it is difficult to consider it a justifiable act aimed at preventing the execution of a lawfully issued arrest warrant."

The verdict was overturned to not guilty in the appellate court. The court judged that the police's search based solely on the arrest warrant without a search warrant was not a lawful execution of official duties. This was due to Kim's side filing a constitutional review request during the appeal, targeting Article 216 of the Criminal Procedure Act, which states that "when a prosecutor or judicial police officer executes an arrest warrant, they may search a person's residence or building without a warrant."

However, the Constitutional Court ruled that this provision allows searches without a warrant even when urgent circumstances justifying the issuance of a warrant prior to the search are not recognized, thus violating the "warrant requirement exception" under Article 16 of the Constitution.

Accordingly, the second trial court stated, "Searches based solely on an arrest warrant are permissible only in urgent circumstances; otherwise, it is unconstitutional," and concluded, "Therefore, all charges against Kim, premised on lawful execution of official duties, are acquitted."

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