Wife Injures Husband with Fingernails While Resisting Assault... Constitutional Court Cancels Prosecutor's Suspension of Indictment Decision

The Constitutional Court has ruled to cancel the prosecution suspension decision against a wife who, in the process of resisting to escape her husband's assault, scratched her husband's arm with her nails.

Although there was sufficient possibility that the act could be considered self-defense or a justifiable act, thereby negating illegality, the prosecutor issued a prosecution suspension decision without making such a judgment, which was deemed to have violated the petitioner’s right to equality and pursuit of happiness.

Constitutional Court Grand Chamber. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

According to the legal community on the 6th, the Constitutional Court unanimously decided to "cancel the prosecution suspension decision against Moon" in a constitutional complaint case filed by Moon, who received a prosecution suspension for assaulting her husband, against the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office.

In January 2021, Moon scratched her husband's arm during an argument at their home in Incheon.

While the husband sustained minor injuries that appeared to be scratches from nails on his arm, Moon suffered a lumbar vertebra fracture requiring four weeks of treatment after being kicked by her husband and hitting a desk when she fell.

Both parties reported the incident to emergency number 112, and the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office, which investigated the case, issued prosecution suspension decisions for both Moon and her husband, who was also charged with injury. The prosecutor viewed that Moon assaulted her husband by scratching his arm with her nails while trying to retrieve her phone from his hand to call 112.

A prosecution suspension is a disposition where the suspect is not brought to trial despite the charges being recognized, considering various circumstances by the prosecutor. It is a type of non-prosecution disposition that exempts criminal punishment, but civil liability may still be imposed based on the investigation agency's judgment that the crime was established, and investigation records are retained for 5 to 10 years.

Moon filed a constitutional complaint, arguing that the prosecutor's disposition was unjust. She claimed that she was subjected to unilateral assault and did not assault her husband, and even if injuries occurred while pushing her husband away, it should be considered self-defense, making the prosecution suspension an infringement of her fundamental rights by public authority.

The Constitutional Court accepted Moon's claims.

Although their testimonies about how the husband's arm was injured conflicted, the court found Moon's testimony credible based on the voice recording file containing the circumstances at the time secured by the investigation agency, which included evidence of the husband's unilateral assault, the wife's screams such as "Don't kick me" and "Don't come," among others.

In particular, the court pointed out that the husband's screams in the recording were only confirmed once during the process of dragging Moon, and were not heard when Moon was asking for her phone back, stating, "The victim's (husband's) injury appears to have occurred as the petitioner (Moon) removed the victim's hand while being dragged, as the petitioner claims."

The Constitutional Court judged that the prosecutor's prosecution suspension decision, made without considering that Moon's actions could be self-defense or justifiable acts, was incorrect.

The court stated, "The petitioner's actions constitute a socially reasonable justifiable act or self-defense as a passive use of force to protect herself from the victim's preemptive and unilateral illegal attack and to escape from it. Therefore, the respondent (prosecutor) should have examined more closely whether the petitioner's actions constituted justifiable acts or self-defense at the time of the incident, but failed to do so and immediately recognized the petitioner’s assault charge, which was a mistake."

It added, "Therefore, the prosecution suspension decision in this case inevitably involved significant investigative negligence and legal misinterpretation that influenced the decision, resulting in the infringement of the petitioner's rights to equality and pursuit of happiness."

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