Supreme Court: "Silent Vitamin Gift by Saemaeul Geumgo Election Candidate Constitutes Intent to Offer Bribes"

Supreme Court, Seocho-dong, Seoul. Photo by Honam Moon munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] The branch director who distributed vitamin boxes to voters while running for the Saemaeul Geumgo Central Association president election was sentenced to a fine by the Supreme Court.

On the 16th, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Park Jeonghwa) announced that it upheld the lower court's ruling sentencing branch director A, who was indicted for violating the Saemaeul Geumgo Act, to a fine of 1 million won.

Previously, A was charged with providing 13 boxes of vitamins (worth approximately 455,000 won) to 11 delegates of the Saemaeul Geumgo Central Association president election. He was investigated for showing an attitude suggesting that voters should vote for him if he ran, saying he was very interested in the development of Saemaeul Geumgo.

Article 22, Paragraph 2, Item 1 of the current Saemaeul Geumgo Act stipulates, "No one shall provide money or goods to members or their families, or express intent to provide or promise to provide, for the purpose of electing oneself or a specific person as an executive of the Geumgo."

The first trial court stated, "Providing money or goods related to elections seriously undermines the fairness and transparency of the election, and the nature of the crime is bad," and sentenced A to a fine of 1 million won.

Subsequently, A's side appealed, arguing that the charge of 'providing money or goods' did not apply to B, one of the 11 recipients of the vitamins, as there was no phone call or actual meeting with B. It was investigated that A gave the vitamins to another employee, C, in the office on behalf of absent B.

The second trial court applied the charge of 'expressing intent to provide money or goods' instead of 'providing money or goods' for the part where A claimed innocence, and similarly sentenced him to a fine of 1 million won. The second trial court stated, "Although it is difficult to see that B directly received the election-related vitamins from A, the objective circumstances show that B was aware that the vitamins were provided to him through C."

It added, "If it is recognized that there is no concern about causing substantial disadvantage to the defendant's right to defense, the court may, within the scope of recognizing the identity of the charges, acknowledge facts different from those stated in the indictment without changing the indictment ex officio."

The Supreme Court also agreed with this judgment. The court dismissed the appeal, stating, "The lower court did not err in interpreting the 'expression of intent to provide' stipulated in Article 22, Paragraph 2, Item 1 of the Saemaeul Geumgo Act and the principle of 'nemo tenetur principle'." The 'nemo tenetur principle' means that the court can only commence trial if the prosecutor files charges and can only judge the facts stated in the indictment.

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