South Korea's top court has upheld convictions against members of a Seoul university student activist group who staged picket protests at a campaign event for Oh Se-hoon, then a candidate for the United Future Party, the predecessor of the People Power Party, ahead of the April 2020 general election.
The Supreme Court's second division, with Justice Eom Sang-pil as the presiding judge, recently affirmed a lower court ruling that fined a 43-year-old member of the Seoul University Students' Progressive Alliance 6 million won, legal sources said on the 2nd. The court also upheld penalties for 15 other members of the group, ranging from fines of 1 million won to 5 million won, a 1 million won fine with a one-year suspended sentence, and a suspended imposition of sentence.
The defendants were indicted on charges of campaigning before the legally permitted campaign period by repeatedly putting up banners and picket signs in Seoul's Gwangjin district with the aim of defeating Oh in the election. The picket signs criticized Oh for giving a combined 1.2 million won to five security guards and cleaning staff at the apartment complex where he lived during a traditional holiday. Some defendants also faced charges of obstructing campaign activities by surrounding Oh for about 20 minutes one morning in March that year at a subway station concourse in Gwangjin district, holding up signs, shouting and arguing with his campaign workers.
Prosecutors concluded that the conduct amounted to premature campaigning banned under the Public Official Election Act and also constituted obstruction of a candidate's campaign through improper means. The defendants countered that their activities expressed public opinion about suspected election law violations by the candidate and therefore qualified as a justifiable act under the Criminal Act.
In October last year, the trial court found the defendants guilty, ruling that their protests were primarily aimed at urging voters to defeat Oh and thereby undermined the fairness of the election. The appeals court reached the same conclusion, finding that the main purpose of their actions was to call for Oh's defeat. "The intentions behind the defendants' actions as charged are understandable, but punishment is unavoidable because a legal order exists," the court said. Two members, however, received a 1 million won fine with a one-year suspended sentence and a suspended imposition of sentence, respectively.
The Supreme Court let the lower court ruling stand. "The lower court's judgment contains no error affecting the outcome, such as exceeding the limits of free evaluation of evidence in violation of the rules of logic and experience, or misunderstanding the legal principles on justifiable acts that do not violate social norms," the court said.
