hankyoreh

A court has just found lawmaker Lee Seok-ki and others guilty of conspiring to carry out an “insurrection” and sentenced them to long terms of twelve to fourteen years in prison. The court agreed with most of the prosecutors’ charges, including claims that the so-called “revolutionary organization” (RO) was the vehicle for the insurrection plan and that Lee was the one in charge. And it rejected all of the arguments from Lee and the defense, who called the RO a “fiction” and the product of pure speculation by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the person who tipped the authorities off.

It isn’t clear just how much water the court’s decision is going to hold, not only in legal terms but also in terms of the way the case has unfolded so far. Having seen it erupt amid allegations of political interference by the NIS in the 2012 presidential election, the public would be justified in feeling that the court has been enlisted in a scapegoating campaign designed to get the administration and security authorities out of a difficult spot.

To begin with, the ruling on the conspiracy and incitement charges is legally questionable. The court agreed with the prosecution that the RO was a secret underground revolutionary organization operating under North Korea’s “juche” ideology, which plotted to organize an unconstitutional insurrection and overturn South Korea’s liberal democracy. As press reports have already shown, recordings from the meetings do include some rather startling language - talk about “busting water tanks,” “demolishing towers,” and “harassing rear guards.” Another conversation among three people - one of whom, an individual named Lee, was the one who informed the authorities - includes a kind of ideological study session with parts that seem to recognize the legitimacy of North Korea’s hereditary succession.

Even so, whether this counts as conspiracy or incitement in legal terms is a different question entirely. Article 87 of the Criminal Act defines insurrection as “violence for the purpose of usurping the national territory or subverting the Constitution.” Not only would it have to be a genuine insurrection - enough to disrupt the peace in a specific region - but there would also have to be evidence of an actual conspiracy that goes beyond some kind of abstract agreement.

The ruling itself admits that the conspiracy “did not reach the stage of a detailed plan.” There are serious questions, then, about whether the criteria for a “specific insurrection plan” were met, or whether the members actually had the means to carry one out. It’s hard to credit the court with a reasonable verdict when a meeting where people are talking about toy guns and babies are crying in the background is described as an “organization for insurrectionist conspiracy.”

A clue to the political nature of the case can be found in the NIS’s abrupt decision last August to rule it an example of insurrection. Since the first tipoff in 2010 and all the way through last July, it had been characterizing it as a National Security Law violation when making wiretapping warrant requests. The change seems to suggest a decision by the crisis-stricken NIS to repackage the incident as something more sensational after the eruption of emergency statements and candlelight protests against its own criminal infringement of order with its election interference. The political aims are also evident in the decision to leak transcripts to the press and get the case tried in the court of public opinion - a charge that applies equally to the ill-considered choice to release sealed transcripts from the 2007 inter-Korean summit before the case. Another sign of the politically charged nature of the case was the spate of “pro-North” accusations made by the administration around the same time, including having the Justice Ministry request that the Constitutional Court rule on disbanding the Unified Progressive Party.

At the moment, it looks like the court failed to strictly observe legal principles, allowing itself to be swayed by a public opinion campaign by security authorities. It’s extremely unfortunate if this is the case.

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