Prosecutors Clear Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon of 'Pre-Election Roundtable' Charges... Records Returned to Police

Cho Hee-yeon, Superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. / Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] The prosecution has concluded that the police's decision not to prosecute Seoul Superintendent of Education Cho Hee-yeon, who was accused of holding a roundtable discussion as illegal pre-election campaigning ahead of the June 1 local elections, is appropriate.

On the 28th, the Public Investigation Division 2 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Lee Sang-hyun) reviewed the police's non-prosecution decision regarding Superintendent Cho, who was reported for allegedly holding an illegal roundtable discussion during the June 1 local elections (violation of the Local Education Autonomy Act). They judged that the charges were not substantiated and returned the case files to the police on the same day.

A civic group supporting conservative superintendents accused Superintendent Cho of conducting pre-election campaigning by holding the roundtable discussion at the Seoul Metropolitan Council on May 10 this year and reported him to the police.

The Seoul Namdaemun Police Station, which investigated the case, determined that the roundtable discussion could not be considered pre-election campaigning and decided not to prosecute.

Article 245-5 of the Criminal Procedure Act (Transfer of Cases by Judicial Police Officers) stipulates that when the police investigate a complaint or accusation and recognize the presence of criminal charges, they must promptly transfer the case to the prosecutor and send related documents and evidence (Item 1).

Conversely, if criminal charges are not recognized or in other cases, the police must promptly send a written explanation of the reasons along with related documents and evidence to the prosecutor (Item 2). In this case, the prosecutor must return the documents and evidence to the judicial police officer within 90 days from the date of receipt.

Furthermore, Article 245-8, Paragraph 1 of the same law (Request for Reinvestigation, etc.) allows the prosecutor to request reinvestigation in writing to the judicial police officer if the police decide not to prosecute and send related documents, but the prosecutor judges the non-prosecution decision to be illegal or unjust.

A prosecution official said, "A non-prosecution case is a decision already made by the police, and the prosecution reviews it again. We judged that there was no problem with the police's decision."

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