Supreme Court: "Combine Crimes Before and After Public Officials' Retirement for Imprisonment... Pension Should Be Reduced"

Supreme Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul. / Photo by Mun Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] The Supreme Court has ruled that if crimes committed by a public official during their tenure and after retirement are prosecuted together as concurrent offenses and result in a sentence of imprisonment or higher, it constitutes grounds for reducing the public official pension.

On the 1st, the Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Jo Jaeyeon) announced that it overturned the lower court ruling that had ruled in favor of former police officer A in the appeal trial of the retirement benefit recovery claim lawsuit filed against the Public Officials Pension Service, and remanded the case to the Seoul High Court.

Previously, A was appointed as a police officer in 1978 and retired in 2014, receiving a retirement payment of 68.05 million won from the Public Officials Pension Service and a monthly retirement pension of 2.64 million won. Later, A was prosecuted for injury and assault causing injury, which he committed due to suspicion of his wife's infidelity, and was sentenced to one year in prison with a two-year probation. He was punished for three offenses as concurrent crimes; among these, two were assault causing injury and injury offenses committed after retirement, and one injury offense was committed in 2011 while A was still a public official.

Accordingly, the Public Officials Pension Service notified that it would recover half of the retirement payment and pension paid under the Public Officials Pension Act and reduce future retirement pensions by half. Article 65 of the current Public Officials Pension Act stipulates that "if a public official is sentenced to imprisonment or higher for reasons during their tenure, part of the retirement benefits and allowances shall be reduced."

On the other hand, A opposed the decision of the Public Officials Pension Service, arguing that if he had been punished only for the injury offense committed during his tenure, he would have received a fine rather than detention, and filed an administrative lawsuit.

The first trial partially accepted A's claim and ruled that the Public Officials Pension Service must return the recovered retirement payment and half of the retirement pension. The second trial ruled in favor of A, ordering the cancellation of the restriction on pension payments in addition to returning the recovered funds. The second trial court pointed out, "If it can be evaluated that imprisonment or higher was not confirmed solely for reasons during tenure, even if imprisonment or higher was confirmed for concurrent offenses including crimes committed after retirement, it does not fall under the case of 'imprisonment or higher confirmed for reasons during tenure.'"

However, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial and reconsideration of the case. The court stated, "If a sentence of imprisonment or higher is imposed for multiple crimes in a concurrent offense relationship, it means that imprisonment or higher was selected for all crimes in the concurrent offense relationship," and "the lower court erred in interpreting and applying Article 65, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 1 of the Public Officials Pension Act, which affected the judgment."

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