hankyoreh

The 76-year-old mother-in-law of People Power Party presidential nominee Yoon Suk-yeol is questioned by reporters as she leaves the courthouse after being acquitted at an appeal of an earlier conviction related to her establishment of a long-term care facility. (Yonhap News)

An initial conviction of Yoon Suk-yeol’s mother-in-law on charges including illegal establishment of a long-term care hospital was overturned on Tuesday.

The 76-year-old mother-in-law of Yoon, identified by her surname Choi, had previously been sentenced to three years in prison and taken into court custody. With the conviction overturned on appeal, it will be up to the Supreme Court to hand down a final verdict.

The court in the appellate trial acknowledged the facts behind the first court’s conviction decision, including that the hospital in question was partially named after Choi and that another of her sons-in-law was employed as chief of its administrative office.

The only difference in its decision to acquit was that it determined these facts “could not be seen as indicating a conspiracy to establish and operate a hospital illegally.”

Because of that, the question of whether the original court made an appropriate determination of the facts appears likely to come up as a key issue when the case appears before the Supreme Court, which focuses as a rule on considering the law rather than reestablishing the facts of the case.

Amid this stark difference in the two courts’ rulings, it was confirmed that the appellate court judge and one of Choi’s attorneys were classmates at the same university who studied in the same class at the Judicial Research and Training Institute (JRTI) and worked together at the same court for five years.

The trial went ahead despite court rules stating that judges should recuse themselves from cases under such circumstances. The prosecutors, who normally are vigilant about such matters, did not raise any objections either.

According to the Hankyoreh’s investigation Tuesday, the chief attorney in Choi’s case as recently as the start of the appellate trial in August 2021 was Son Gyeong-sik, who had represented Choi since her first appearance in court.

But on Sept. 24, shortly after the appellate court granted Choi bail, her legal team hired two additional attorneys from Law Firm Class LLC, one of them being a former judge named Yoo Nam-geun. After joining the team, those two attorneys played a leading role in presenting the court with the defense’s opinion and a summary of its arguments, along with evidentiary materials.

Yoo, 53, is an alumnus of the Korea University law school, which is also the alma mater of the Seoul High Court senior judge who presided over the case, 56-year-old Yoon Gang-yeol.

For two years starting in 1992, the two of them studied together as part of the 23rd class of JTRI students — a group consisting of fewer than 300 people. They also worked together at the Suwon District Court between 2012 and 2013.

When regular appointment rotations took place in February 2014, they were both transferred to the Seoul Central District Court, where they worked together for another three years until February 2017. Yoo became an attorney in 2020.

The revelation that the attorney and judge in Choi’s case had spent all-together seven years side-by-side has observers in the legal community saying Yoon should have recused himself from the case. Some say the case should have been assigned to a different court in the interest of a fair trial.

In 2016, the Seoul High Court established that in the event of a preexisting relationship between a judge and attorney, cases in question should be reassigned to a different judge. Such reassignments may be requested in cases of relationships as fellow high school alumni, classmates at the same university or graduate school, classmates at the JTRI or law school, co-workers at the same court or administrative department during the same period, and other ties based on employment, region, or education.

The same regulation can be found in the rules on the division of duties by judicial officers and case assignment. They state that reassignment may be requested in cases where the appointment of an attorney with personal connections to a judge is deemed to raise concerns or misunderstandings about the fairness of a trial. In such situations, courts are instructed to reassign the cases.

The Criminal Procedure Act states that prosecutors or defendants may request the exclusion of a judge in cases where there are concerns that the judge may conduct an unfair trial, and that judges themselves should recuse themselves if such grounds are deemed to be present.

In 2016, the trial of Choi Soon-sil — now known as Choi Seo-won — and Cha Eun-taek in connection with government influence-peddling was reassigned due to the judge being a JTRI classmate of one of the attorneys. In 2019, a case over abuse of judicial administrative authority against former National Court Administration Deputy Director Im Jong-heon was similarly reassigned because the judge and attorney were university classmates.

Yoon Gang-yeol was also a JTRI classmate of Yoon Suk-yeol.

“Given the high-profile nature of the case ahead of the presidential election, any dispute about the fairness should have been nipped in the bud, whether through a recusal request or through discussions of a reassignment,” said one attorney and former senior judge, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“Even if the court argues that the trial was based on the facts, there is some potential for issues in terms of appearances,” the attorney added.

“It’s important that courts try cases fairly, but it’s also important for it to be seen as a fair trial from the perspective of the public.”

Commenting on this, a Seoul High Court judge and spokesperson explained, “The attorney in question had already done a trial preparation date and one trial date before being appointed.”

“Internal guidelines state that cases are not reassigned after one date has been conducted. If cases were reassigned due to preexisting relationships after dates were conducted, attorneys with relationships [to judges] might be intentionally appointed with an eye toward getting a reassignment,” they added.

“This case was deemed not to present grounds for requesting a reassignment or recusal.”

When asked about the prosecutors’ reasons for not requesting a different judge, a Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office spokesperson said only that the “investigation team had fully maintained its public prosecution in accordance with the law and rules.”

While Yoo Nam-geun had played an active role in the appellate trial, he was not present in court on the sentencing date, when many representatives of the press were present.

By Son Hyun-soo, staff reporter

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