Election Office Lease Without Candidate's Knowledge... Supreme Court Rules "Not Guilty of Political Funds Act Violation"

The Supreme Court has finalized a ruling that if an election office is rented and rent is paid for a candidate without the candidate's knowledge, it cannot be punished as a violation of the Political Funds Act.

The Supreme Court Criminal Division 2 (Presiding Justice Oh Kyung-mi) upheld the lower court's acquittal on October 31 for Oh Mo, who was indicted on charges of violating the Political Funds Act (2020Do14619).

Yonhap News

Oh was charged with renting an election office and paying 14 million won in rent and management fees from October 2017 to April 2018 for the re-election campaign of then Incheon Dong-gu Mayor Lee Heung-soo.

The prosecution argued that the former mayor Lee was aware of Oh’s payment of the rent and tacitly approved it, indicting both on charges of violating the Political Funds Act.

The court ruled that there was no evidence that former Mayor Lee was involved in the office rental process or knew about the payments, and acquitted him of the political fund receipt charges in both the first and second trials. The prosecution did not appeal Lee’s acquittal, making that decision final.

The lower court rulings on Oh were divided.

The first trial found Oh guilty of violating the Political Funds Act for renting the office and paying rent for Lee’s campaign, sentencing him to a fine of 900,000 won.

However, the second trial acquitted Oh based on the principle of daehyangbeom (대향범, reciprocal crime).

Daehyangbeom refers to crimes involving a counterpart, such as bribery giving and receiving, or political fund donation and receipt offenses.

The court stated, "Violation of the Political Funds Act requires a reciprocal relationship between the act of donation and receipt," and added, "Since former Mayor Lee cannot be considered to have received political funds, Oh cannot be recognized as having provided political funds."

It further explained, "The Political Funds Act does not have provisions for punishing attempts. Therefore, Oh cannot be punished solely for attempting to donate."

The prosecution appealed, claiming a legal misunderstanding regarding Oh’s case, but the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and confirmed the acquittal from the second trial.

The court stated, "At the stage where political funds have been prepared but not delivered to the counterpart, it cannot be punished as a violation of the Political Funds Act," and "The lower court’s judgment that Oh did not complete the act of providing political funds is not erroneous."

A Supreme Court official said, "This ruling confirms that under the principle of reciprocal crimes, if a crime is not established on one side, it cannot be established on the other side either," adding, "However, since this ruling simply accepted the acquittal without explicitly clarifying the legal principles, it is difficult to predict its impact on similar future cases."

Lee Soon-gyu, Legal Newspaper Reporter

※This article is based on content supplied by Law Times.

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