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Category: Korean Law

January 9, 2020

Moon Jae-in’s Wednesday Night Massacre threatens the rule of law in Korea

IF ONLY HE’D MASSACRED THEM ON A SATURDAY NIGHT, the metaphor would have been impeccable. But when South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-in, directs his Justice Minister, Choo Mi-ae, to reassign 32 prosecutors as they closed in on political corruption in his office”four months before elections will decide whether his party will have a majority to pass laws or a supermajority to amend the Constitution”it should have been the biggest news since the impeachment of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye. Last night,...
Categories Censorship/Democracy/Korean Law/Korean Politics
March 3, 2016

South Korean National Assembly passes human rights bill. Finally.

Last month, I leveled some bitter criticism at South Korea’s opposition Minju Party for blocking North Korean human rights legislation (ironically enough, “Minju” means “democracy”). This week, after an eleven-year battle, the opposition finally gave up its obstructionism, yielded to the tides of morality and history, and allowed the bill to pass the National Assembly. The final vote for 212 for and 24 abstentions (and none against?). Belated as it was, this victory gives us some reasons to rejoice. First, it’s a...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society
February 2, 2016

Of the North’s crimes against humanity, the world will ask, “Where was South Korea?”

South Korea’s political left, which has long been divided over whether to be violently pro-North Korean, ideologically pro-North Korean, or merely anti-anti-North Korean, has again blocked a vote in South Korea’s National Assembly on a North Korean human rights law that’s been languishing there since 2005. The law itself is weak bori-cha. It had been watered down until it did little more than fund NGOs seeking direct engagement with the North Korean people. But even as a symbolic gesture, as a...
Categories Human Rights/Japan & Korea/Korean Law/Korean Politics/North-South
November 7, 2014

NIS agent gets prison time for framing defector

A Seoul court sentenced Tuesday a mid-ranking state intelligence agent to two and a half years in prison for instructing other agents to forge documents to frame a North Korean defector as a spy. The 48-year-old National Intelligence Service (NIS) agent, surnamed Kim, was convicted of instructing other agents to fabricate the Chinese immigration records of Yoo Woo-seong, a 34-year-old defector who was then an employee of the Seoul municipal government, to charge him with espionage. “Kim routinely made excuses...
Categories Korean Law/Refugees
June 21, 2010

These Are Not Your Father’s North Korean Terrorists

Those North Korean spies sent to assassinate Hwang Jang Yop have appeared in open court to plead guilty: They stayed tight-lipped during the 30-minute hearing but for just a couple of questions when the judge addressed them directly. They briefly replied – “Yes” or “Yes that’s true.” During the hearing, they frequently gazed at the ceiling of the courtroom and at the prosecutors sitting on the opposite side, but never turned their eyes to the judge or toward the guest...
Categories Korean Law/Terrorism (NK)
June 6, 2010

Hwang Jang Yop Assassination Team Indicted

In America, lawyers often say you can indict a ham sandwich. In the federal system, an indictment means only that probable causes exists to believe that an offense was committed and that the defendant committed it. In Korea, however, if the prosecution indicts, it means they think they have the goods on you. It means they think that your confession (however coerced) and the statements against you (most likely hearsay) and other evidence (however circumstantial) are enough to convince the...
Categories Korean Law/Terrorism (NK)
May 25, 2010

North Korean Milfspionage Takes a Scary Turn

What is it with the North Korean spy agencies’ recent proclivity for using “women of a certain age” to target horny South Korean men? First, there was Won Jong-Hwa, who seduced, inter alia, a young South Korean army captain for classified information, and possibly a lieutenant as well, assuming that both officers weren’t actually the same person. Now, there is the story of Kim Soon-Nyeo, whose targets included a 29 year-old college student, two travel agency workers, and her grand...
Categories Korean Law/The Fifth Column
May 10, 2010

Samsung Tries to Sue Its Way to Mohammunity

Recently, a friend approached me about the idea of writing a column for a South Korean newspaper. I declined on the basis that I’m already overtaxed by the burden of writing this blog, but perhaps I should have added “the defense of personal jurisdiction” as another reason: In his Christmas Day 2009 column for the Korea Times, Michael Breen decided to lampoon such national newsmakers as President Lee Myung-bak and the pop idol Rain. Headlined “What People Got for Christmas,”...
Categories Censorship/Humor/Satire/Korean Law
February 17, 2010

How Will Chung Dong Young Answer a Truth and Reconciliation Committee?

After years of unproductive debate, the South Korean National Assembly’s Unification and Foreign Affairs Committee finally approved a bill on improving human rights conditions in North Korea last week, on a vote divided along party lines: The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) said the overall budget for its activities in 12 categories was cut by 5.38 percent on-year to 4.63 billion won (US$4 million) for the 2010 fiscal year. Funding for research into North Korean defectors and human...
Categories Human Rights/Korean Law/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
July 15, 2009

A Glimpse at the Growing Pains Connected with Reunification

While living in Korea, I was always surprised at some South Korean citizens’ belief that reunification, whenever it should happen, will be smooth sailing. Indeed, one would think that is the message the ROK government is trying to sell. Has anyone seen the video they play at the DMZ? I’m not sure if they’ve since changed it, but when I saw it, they had smiling, well-fed, healthy children running around a grassy field with butterflies and flowers and a little...
Categories Korean Law/North-South
March 4, 2009

NIS Seeks Direct Power to Eavesdrop on Foreigners

The bill before the Legislation and Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee would have the law changed to make it possible for the NIS to eavesdrop on all current communication formats like mobile telecommunications and the Internet, as well as all communications networks that take form in the future. It would also require communications companies to maintain records of all communications for at least one year keep user location information as part of those records. In addition, the bill would allow the NIS...
Categories Korean Law
January 17, 2009

South Korean Officer Gets 3 1/2 Years in North Korea Spy Scandal

Somehow, the spirit of the June 15th declaration hasn’t reached all levels of the North Korean government: A South Korean army officer has been sentenced to three and a half years in military prison for aiding a North Korean spy in a sex-for-secrets scandal last year, an official said Friday. The 27-year-old first lieutenant, identified only by his last name Hwang, was arrested in July on charges of supplying classified information to North Korean spy Won Jeong-hwa while being aware...
Categories Korean Law/ROK Military/The Fifth Column
January 16, 2009

Korea Invents New Form of Child Exploitation

Korea’s entertainment industry, legal “profession,” and police force join forces to shake down kids: “We have struggled to find a way to stop the abuse of the justice system,” said Hwang Un-ha, Daejeon Jungbu Police chief. “So we decided to exercise the right of police to refer cases for summary trial. It was a solution to save kids. [Joongang Ilbo, emphasis mine] How compassionate of them. Copyright holders, however, are upset, claiming that the matter must not be treated lightly....
Categories Korean Law/Korean Society
November 19, 2008

Can we finally dispense with the whole “no gay in Korea” myth … ?

… now that the Korean Supreme Court is considering the case of a certain “Sergeant A?” A sergeant identified only as “A” was initially booked on a charge of making a sexual attack on a private in a platoon that he led, but the suit against him was dropped with the victim’s consent. However, the sergeant has been newly charged for violation of Clause 92 of military criminal law.  [Joongang Ilbo] In the American system, cases very rarely become “test...
Categories Korean Law/Korean Society/ROK Military
April 30, 2008

Better Them Than Us: Korean Nationalism Turns on China

As I suspected, the China’s censorship-by-thug on the streets of  Seoul is not proving popular among Koreans.  The Chinese  government seems to be coming to grips with the P.R. disaster it has made for itself.  Its diplomats, though not quite in a full kowtow position, are offering either an apology or whatever it is that  Asian diplomats  offer when national pride prevents one:  South Korea’s Foreign Ministry expressed regret Monday to China’s ambassador to Seoul, Ning Fukui, over the incident,...
Categories Censorship/China & Korea/Democracy/Korean Law
March 18, 2008

Rule of Law or Rule By Law?

The Hanky has the vapors over President Lee’s plans to let the police use a bit more force against violent protestors. The plans include detailed rules on the use of force, and plans to arrest people who engage in violence and cross police lines. To this, the Hanky reacts with hyperbolic charges of a return to dictatorship: President Lee seemed to have been encouraging the police when he said, “If foreign television programs show the nation’s unlawful, violent demonstrators wielding...
Categories Censorship/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society
April 16, 2007

Il Shim Hue Members Convicted, Sentenced, and Probably Confused

Somewhere, Kafka’s  spirit is smiling.   A South  Korean court  and has handed down guilty verdicts to five members of the Il Shim Hue spy ring  individuals who had coincidentally all  possessed similar loyalty oaths to the Lodestar of  the Great Korean  Race and  received their pay and instructions at a safe house at  3089 Dongxuhuayuan, 18 Shuangqiaodong-lu, Zahoyang-qu, on the outskirts of Beijing.  Bailiff!    Read  the verdict! A Seoul court convicted five people, including a Korean-American businessman, of spying...
Categories Korean Law/The Fifth Column