'Leak of Investigation Confidentiality' Allegation: Former Court Chief Lee Tae-jong Acquitted (Update)

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] Lee Tae-jong, former chief judge of the Seoul Western District Court (currently a presiding judge at the Suwon High Court), who was prosecuted on charges of leaking confidential information to prevent the expansion of investigations into internal court corruption, has been acquitted by the Supreme Court.

On the 30th, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Park Jeong-hwa) upheld the lower court's verdict of not guilty in the final appeal hearing for Lee, who was charged with abuse of authority and obstruction of the exercise of rights.

Lee was prosecuted on charges that, while serving as chief judge of the Seoul Western District Court in 2016, he instructed a planning judge to obtain copies of warrants and other investigation secrets when the prosecution investigated the staff of the enforcement officer's office, and reported them to Lim Jong-heon, then deputy director of the Court Administration Office.

However, both the first and second trial courts found Lee not guilty. The first trial court stated, "It appears that the defendant thoroughly ordered an audit as the chief judge," and "Even looking at the materials collected by the Seoul Western District Court, there is no material mentioning the possibility of expanding investigations to other courts beyond what is necessary for internal audits."

In the second trial, the court explained, "Although the planning judge collecting audit materials to report to the defendant and the Court Administration Office may have slightly exceeded the minimum necessary scope to achieve the purpose of administrative affairs, it cannot be considered that these were obtained unrelated to official duties." In particular, regarding the charge that Lee instructed the secretary-general to obtain copies of warrants, the court judged that there was insufficient evidence to recognize that there was an intention to obstruct the expansion of investigations beyond the purpose of auditing enforcement officer corruption or that any illegal or improper instructions were given.

The Supreme Court's judgment on this day was no different. The court ruled, "There is no error in the lower court's judgment that does not exceed the limits of free evaluation of evidence or misinterpretation of the legal principles regarding 'official secrets' and 'disclosure' in the crime of leaking official secrets, as well as joint perpetration."

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