[News Analysis] Park Geun-hye likely facing a long stay in prison

Posted on : 2018-02-17 15:46 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
The same court that gave Choi Soon-sil a 20 year sentence will soon issue judgment against the former president
Former president Park Geun-hye attends her trial on bribery and corruption charges at the Seoul Central District Court on May 23
Former president Park Geun-hye attends her trial on bribery and corruption charges at the Seoul Central District Court on May 23

The first trial verdict for Choi Soon-sil clearly named Park Geun-hye as an accomplice, suggesting a general picture of the former President’s own upcoming first trial verdict. Not only do many of the charges against Choi and Park overlap, but with the same court also trying Park’s case, the possibility of a different verdict on the major charges appears highly unlikely.

Of the 20 charges against Choi, thirteen listed her as an accomplice to Park. With the exemption of two third-party bribery charges related to Samsung, the court handed down guilty rulings for 11 of the 13 charges, while acknowledging Park’s complicity. In its ruling, the court recognized Park not only as conspiring with Choi to accept bribes from Samsung, Lotte, and others, but also to have coerced the companies into providing foundation funding and support for Choi’s companies.

“Chief responsibility for the government interference lies with the President who neglected the duties assigned to her by the Constitution and delegated the status and authority invested in her by the public to unelected individuals, and to the defendant, who took advantage of this to monopolize government functions,” the court said.

The court also ruled that the two had been in a relationship of close and systematic conspiracy.

“Ms. Choi and former President Park long maintained a relationship of personal friendship and spoke on the telephone several times a day after [Park’s] taking office,” it said.

For Park, this effectively leaves only the court’s judgments on the five charges that do not overlap with Choi’s. These include the planning and ordering of a culture and arts blacklist (abuse of authority and coercion); the forced resignations of three Level 1 government officials in the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (abuse of authority and coercion); the forced resignation of then-MCST sports bureau director (and current first vice minister) Roh Tae-gang (abuse of authority and coercion); pressure for the resignation of CJ vice chairperson Lee Mi-kyung (attempted coercion); and the leaking of confidential Blue House documents to Choi (divulgence of classified information). The only charge where no ruling has yet been produced is the one related to CJ, where Park was indicted as an accomplice to former Blue House Senior Secretary to the President for Economic Affairs Cho Won-dong.

Last year, the same lower court that is trying Park Geun-hye ruled in the trial of former Blue House Secretary Jung Ho-seong that Jung had leaked documents on Park’s instructions. And the first two trials of figures including former Blue House Chief of Staff Kim Ki-choon in connection with a blacklist of figures in the arts and culture both concluded that Park had given orders for Roh Tae-gang to be pressured into resigning. But the district court and the high court did reach different conclusions in regard to the charges of coercing a Level-1 public servant in the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to resign and of criminal activity related to the blacklist, with the district court concluding that Park had not been in collusion with the defendants and the high court concluding that she had.

Park is expected to receive a longer prison term than Choi, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In deciding Choi’s sentence, the court focused on bribery according to the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes (which carries a sentence of 10 years to life when the amount of the bribe is greater than 100 million won; US$92,000), which was the charge that carried the heaviest sentence. The Supreme Court’s sentencing guidelines recommend a sentence of 11 years to life when the bribe exceeds 500 million won, and the court took into account how aggressively Choi requested the bribe and how large the bribe was (7.2 billion won from Samsung; US$6.6 million).

Legal experts believe that Park is an even worse position because of her sweeping abuses of her authority and because of her boycott of the judicial process, including her refusal to appear in court. Furthermore, Park might also be convicted of the blacklist charges, which Choi did not have included in her sentence. If so, the court is likely to refer to the four-year prison term that Kim Ki-choon and the other defendants received on appeal.

Another notable feature of the court’s decision is that a considerable number of the charges on which Choi was convicted overlap with the grounds for impeaching Park. Referring to the charges of leaking secrets of state and of supporting Choi’s interests through the establishment of the foundations, the Constitutional Court said that Park had “tolerated Choi’s private aggrandizement and infringed on companies’ freedom to manage themselves.” The court has reconfirmed that Park is guilty not only of failing in her constitutional duties as president but also of violating the criminal code.

By Hyun So-eun, staff reporter

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

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