Despite Kim Woong's Recording Release... Legal Circles Say "Well... What Crime?"

Kim Woong Faces Difficulty in Charges of Abuse of Power or Violation of Public Official Election Act
Attention on Prosecutor Who Drafted Accusation Under Instructions from Former Policy Officer Son Joon-sung

Kim Woong, Member of the National Assembly of the People Power Party. / Photo by Yoon Dong-ju doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] As the contents of the recorded phone call between Kim Woong, a member of the People Power Party implicated in the ‘accusation manipulation’ scandal, and the whistleblower Jo Seong-eun have been disclosed, fueling controversy over ‘false explanations,’ the legal community is expressing skepticism about the likelihood of criminally prosecuting Kim.

Son Jun-sung, the former head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Investigation Information Policy Division, who was identified as the person who handed the accusation documents to Kim, is also unlikely to be charged with abuse of authority if he personally drafted the accusation documents. Attention is therefore focused on the existence of another prosecutor who may have instructed Son to draft the initial accusation documents.

On the 8th, Attorney A, a former chief prosecutor, said, “Even if all the allegations reported in the media are true, I honestly don’t know what charges could be applied to Kim.”

Although Son denies it, even if Kim received the accusation documents from Son and passed them to Jo, resulting in the actual filing of accusations, it is unclear what crime Kim could be charged with. This view was shared by many legal professionals, not just Attorney A.

For example, even if Kim asked Son, due to personal friendship from their time as prosecutors, to draft the accusation documents, and then received and passed them on to Jo, the consensus in the legal community is that it would be difficult to apply charges such as abuse of authority or violation of the Public Official Election Act (interference by public officials in elections) to Kim, who had already left his prosecutor position and was preparing to run for office.

Moreover, since the accusation documents were mostly based on facts already revealed by the media, it is hard to consider this as instigating false accusations through fabricated facts. In fact, in the case of the accusation against Choi Kang-wook, leader of the Open Democratic Party, the prosecution indicted him and a guilty verdict was reached in the first trial.

For Kim to be punished, Son would need to be charged with abuse of authority or violation of the Public Official Election Act, and it would have to be proven that Kim conspired with Son, which is considered unlikely.

Currently, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) has registered Kim as a suspect and is investigating, but this is because he was already registered as a suspect when the case was transferred from the prosecution, not because the CIO independently judged that there was a reasonable suspicion of Kim’s criminal conduct as in other cases.

Meanwhile, legal experts unanimously agree that if Son personally drafted the accusation documents at Kim’s request and handed them to Kim, abuse of authority charges would not hold. While Son’s conduct as a sitting prosecutor may warrant disciplinary action for inappropriate behavior, it does not constitute criminal liability.

For abuse of authority charges to apply to Son, it must be confirmed that Son did not draft the accusation documents himself but instructed a junior prosecutor to do so, thereby compelling someone to perform an unnecessary task.

Last month, some media outlets reported that the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Inspection Department identified the prosecutor who drafted the accusation documents during its fact-finding investigation. However, it has been confirmed that when the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office transferred the case to the CIO, it did not include that prosecutor as a suspect.

Considering that the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office secured and reviewed the investigation materials during a search of the Inspection Department but did not transfer the identity of the accusation document drafter to the CIO, it remains unclear whether another prosecutor actually exists who drafted the documents under Son’s instructions.

Furthermore, for Kim to be punished as an accomplice in abuse of authority, it must be proven that Kim asked Son to have another prosecutor draft and deliver the accusation documents, which seems unlikely.

If it is confirmed that Son drafted and delivered accusation documents against candidates from the ruling coalition, there remains a possibility that Son could be charged with violating the Public Official Election Act’s prohibition on election interference by public officials.

In the case of former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol, it would need to be proven that he instructed Son or Son’s superior to draft accusation documents to investigate ruling coalition politicians attacking him. Although some media recently reported that Kim mentioned Yoon’s real name in the disclosed recordings, this is known to be untrue.

Ultimately, the CIO’s investigation into the ‘accusation manipulation’ scandal should focus on why Son handed the accusation documents to Kim, whether there is a higher-ranking prosecutor inside the prosecution who instructed Son to draft the documents, and whether Son himself drafted the documents or instructed a junior prosecutor to do so.

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