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| TITLE | Supreme Court en banc Decision 2017Do14322 Decided April 19, 2018【Violation of the Public Official Election Act; Violation of the National Intelligence Service Korea Act】 [full Text] |
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| Summary | |
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[1] Meaning and scope of “taking advantage of his/her status as a public official” under Article 85(1) of the former Public Official Election Act [2] Meaning of “taking advantage of one’s position” under Article 9(2)2 of the former National Intelligence Service Korea Act [3] Grounds for strictly prohibiting public officials from engaging in election campaigns by utilizing their status as prescribed by Article 85(1) of the former Public Official Election Act Meaning of “election campaign” under the former Public Official Election Act and standard for determining what constitutes an election campaign Whether such standard is likewise applicable to activities carried out individually and collectively (affirmative) [4] Requirement to recognize an accomplice, who had not directly assigned and performed activities that fall under elements of a crime, as a co-principal Cases where tacit collusion and functional control of a crime may be deemed to exist as to a derivative crime Requirement for the establishment of complicity where two or more persons jointly committed a crime and degree of proof required to acknowledge complicity (held: strict proof), and method of proof in cases where a criminal suspect denies complicity [5] In a case where Defendant A, Director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Defendant B, Third Deputy Director of the NIS, and Defendant C, Head of the NIS’s Psychological Operations Division: (a) colluded with employees of the Psychological Operations Division’s Cyber Team; (b) conducted such cyber activities as uploading posts and writing comments online, clicking on thumbs-up or thumbs-down icons, and posting tweets and retweets; and (c) was indicted on charges of violating the former National Intelligence Service Korea Act and the former Public Official Election Act on the grounds of having used their NIS employee status to intervene in political activities and, at the same time, their public official status to engage in the 18th presidential election campaign, the Court affirming the lower judgment convicting the Defendants of said charges related to certain activities performed by the Cyber Team employees |
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