Constitutional Court admits errors, deleted names in UPP disbandment ruling

Posted on : 2015-01-30 16:21 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Evidence suggests that important ruling was rushed to meet a year-end deadline
 Dec. 19
Dec. 19

The Constitutional Court deleted the names of people misidentified as participants at an “insurrection rally” from its Dec. 19 ruling to disband the Unified Progressive Party (UPP).

The highly unusual after-the-fact revision of Constitutional Court decision is being seen as an admission that major details in the text were “pieced together” without sufficient examination by judicial and research officers in order to meet a year-end sentencing deadline.

The Constitutional Court announced on Jan. 29 that it had deleted the names of Yoon Won-seok, president of the news outlet Voice of the People, and Shin Chang-hyun, former head of the UPP‘s Incheon branch, from its list of attendees at the insurrection rally. The court’s ruling had listed both men as attending the so-called “Hapjeong meeting” organized in May 2013 by the party‘s Gyeonggi Province branch, when neither was actually present. The meeting was crucial evidence in prosecutors’ indictment of former lawmaker Lee Seok-ki on insurrection conspiracy charges, as well as a key basis for the court‘s decision to disband the UPP.

“The judges began reviewing the ruling the day the error was reported, and they made the decision to revise the sections in question at a conference of all nine justices on Jan. 22, which was before Mr. Shin and Mr. Yoon filed their suit,” said an anonymous source with the court.

Another revision involved removing the erroneous description of two other individuals, identified by their surnames Lee and Ahn, as “members” of the UPP members’ education committee.

The list of errors in the ruling didn‘t end there. While the UPP succeeded in electing 31 local district councilors to basic assemblies and three proportional representation councilors in the June 2014 municipal elections, the ruling stated that it “only succeeded in electing a total of three basic assembly local district councilors and proportional representation councilors.” A section explaining the Political Parties Act omitted the “per city/provincial branch” from the requirement that a party must have “one thousand or more members per city/provincial branch” to be registered. The date Lee Seok-ki was sentenced was also given as “2017” rather than 2014.

In total, the court reported nine deletions or revisions to the text.

Shin previously launched a one-person demonstration on Dec. 31 to demand an apology from the Constitutional Court after finding his name incorrectly listed in the ruling. On Jan. 26, he and Yoon filed suit in Seoul Central District Court to demand 60 million won (US$54,500) in compensation from the state and the eight justices who voted in favor of the UPP’s disbanding.

“I‘m glad they corrected the ruling, but the Constitutional Court still isn’t doing anything to address the reputation damage,” Shin told the Hankyoreh in a telephone interview. “There hasn‘t been a word of apology.”

Shin went on to say he has “no intention of withdrawing the lawsuit.”

Such shocking errors were not found in past Constitutional Court rulings on major cases such as the impeachment of former President Roh Moo-hyun or the constitutionality battle over the designation of an administrative capital. On rare occasions, proper nouns and numbers have been incorrectly printed, but the recent verdict’s misrepresentations and distortions of important facts were seen as unprecedented.

“It is unacceptable to have a high-level court commit errors in its ruling that harm the reputations of innocent people,” said Sogang University law school professor Lim Ji-bong.

“This just proves that the drafting of the ruling was a rush job to meet a deadline,” Lim added. “If they are truly concerned about the public‘s civil rights, they should have apologized before making the revisions.”

 

By Lee Kyung-mi, staff reporter

 

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

 

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