by the Supreme Court of Korea

“ Summary of Decision Article 308 of the Criminal Procedure Act that provides for the principle of free assessment permits the judge to use his discretionary judgment to determine a piece of evidence's probative value, because it is an appropriate way to discover the real truth and it does not mean that the judge's arbitrary judgment shall be quoted, therefore the judge of a de facto trial who holds the absolute right to judging evidence shall consider all recognitions obtained and all evidence investigated in trial procedures in recognizing facts with no exception. ”

“ Concerning the arguments concerning the violation of rule of law Fraud is deceiving others and raising errors of others ending in property or financial gain by inducing disposal action. Here, disposal action is disposal action of property that the deceived went further into action or omission, which incur direct financial damage by free will. Therefore, even if the deceived was in error and did not claim the credit, as he did not know the existence of credit, such an omission is also a disposal action of the property. ”

“ Furthermore, national police whose duty shall include a protection of life, body, property of citizens and prevention, suppression, investigation of crime (Article 3 of police Act) , are not allowed to go further into the investigation, intentionally leaving the health and safety of the victim in danger. In addition, it cannot be seen as the legal exercise of police power, using the victim as bait in spite of the danger of the health and safety of that person without the consent of the victim even under the circumstance where cooperation from the citizen is needed for criminal investigation. ”

“ Summary of Decision If a driver continued driving the same vehicle for a certain period of time with a blood alcohol level of 0.05% or higher and was tested once for the blood alcohol level, it constitutes one inclusive crime in consideration of a legal interest protected by the punishment of a drunk driving crime in violation of the Road Traffic Act and its punishment method, since such act of drunk driving is a series of acts under the same name of crime that are continually committed under a single and continuing criminal intention, which inflicts damage on the same legal interest. ”

“ Thus, it is not allowed to impose a sentence of actual imprisonment on part of the punishment of restricting physical freedom and declare a suspension on the execution of the remaining part of the punishment. ”

“ It may be difficult to view a signature on artwork as an artwork in itself, as it is only used as a means to show that the product is the artwork of the artist and is not in itself an expression of artistic emotion or ideals. ”

“ Summary of Decision The start point of human is the time when the deliberation has started (so called labor pain theory or deliberation starting theory) with periodic labor pains under the interpretation of criminal act that protects life of a man and physical security. The period when medically Caesarean section was possible but normatively operation was needed could be interpreted differently by persons and situations, the period of starting the delivery which is the period of human could be unclear, therefore cannot be accepted. ”

“ The unity of the technical composition of the manufacturing method invention, that is the consistency of the sequential organic relationship when producing a particular target material by adding a reactant to an initial material, is not lost when adding the catalyst in the invention to the manufacturing method of the chemical material. Therefore, it is appropriate to consider it as a use invention containing all the artistic substance of the previous patented invention even when there is a prominent increase in yield due to the addition of a catalyst, unless there are special circumstances. ”

“ Main Issues The meaning of an impossible crime The case holding that an act of intending to murder a victim, but not achieving its intended purpose by using "Scopoliae rhizoma" and "Nutgrass galingale" which could cause a death if taken by a person by a dose beyond a certain quantity constitutes not an impossible crime, but the crime of attempt to commit a murder
Summary of Decision An impossible crime refers to a case where there is no possibility for a criminal result to occur or for legal interest to be infringed due to the nature of the criminal act. ”

“ For a director of a company to lend company fund to another person, if he did it while knowing that the other person has already lost his ability to pay off loans so lending him money would cause damage to the company, or if he did it while not taking reasonable measures such as getting sufficient collaterals provided, such loans constitute malfeasance in office against the company as it is an act of letting the other person gain profit and causing damage to the company (refer to Supreme Court Decision 99Do4923 delivered on March 14, 2000 et al.) ”

“ The grounds for exceptions such as a violation of traffic signal, etc., stipulated in the items of Article 3 (2) of the Act on Special Cases concerning the Settlement of Traffic Accident that permits a driver who causes a traffic accident and commits a crime of causing injury to someone, while on the job, through negligence or through gross negligence to bring a suit against a victim's expression of opinions are not the elements of the crime of violation stipulated under Article 3 (1) of the same Act but merely constitute the grounds for submitting the indictment. ”

“ Summary of Decision Originally, an undercover operation which provoke the criminal intent from the person who did not have criminal intent from the beginning by using evil trick and a scheme is in itself, illegal, and introducing prosecution following the undercover operation is void due to its violation to rule of law, however, just providing opportunity to commit crime for the person who already has criminal intent can not automatically interpreted as illegal undercover operation. ”

“ A legal counsel who is an attorney has an obligation of truth in accordance with the Attorney-at-Law Act, but as a legal counsel's legal advice to a physically restrained person is his right as well as his duty, it shall not be called a violation of a legal counsel's obligation of truth if the legal counsel simply lets an accused or a suspect know that he has the constitutional right to refuse to make a statement, if he does not aggressively make an accused or a suspect deliver a false statement. ”

“ Unlike the crime of threat, the crime of robbery is constituted when property is robbed by the means of violence and threat that is strong enough to repress the victim's resistance, so if an ATM card is robbed from the victim, it shall not be deemed that the victim expressed his intention to permit the use of his ATM card. ”

“ If a person who is subject to the stay of execution by which the probation, social service or taking lecture is ordered, under Article 62-2, violates the matters to be observed or the order, and the degree of such violation is grave, the sentence of the stay of execution may be revoked. Article 65 of the Criminal Act (Effect of Suspension of Execution of Sentence) After a suspension of sentence is rendered, and the term of suspension has fully elapsed without the sentence being nullified or revoked, the sentence shall lose its validity. ”

“ Even in theory, the majority is that a crime of intimidation shall be interpreted as a crime of invasion under the current Criminal Act, which is natural considering the general property of a crime of attempt. ”

“ In particular, in the case of scientific evidence methods including gene tests or blood type tests, if all factual premises are proven to be true and the method of reasoning is scientifically justifiable so there is absolutely no or only negligible margin of error, they shall be deemed to be significantly binding for a judge to recognize facts, therefore even though recognizing facts is the right of a de facto trial, recklessly excluding it without any reasonable ground amounts to going beyond the limit of the principle of free assessment, which cannot be permitted. ”

“ If the asset of the company that is taken over is made to be provided as collateral without any compensation, it is fair to deem that the person that takes over the company or a third party gained property profit that is equivalent of the value of the collateral and that the company that is taken over bears damages to its property. ”

“ The act has no separate clause for negligent abortion and attempted abortion. Therefore, criminal law does not regard fetus as part of body of pregnant woman, and abortion behavior can not be regarded as comprising a charge of injuring pregnant woman regardless of the fact that abortion behavior encroach the function of baby nurturing and giving birth to a child. Therefore, the act of putting unborn child to death cannot be interpreted as injuring part of body of pregnant woman or violating the physiological function of nurturing or giving birth to a child due to the death of a child. ”

“ Article 12 of the Constitution 4) Any person who is arrested or detained shall have the right to prompt assistance of counsel. When a criminal defendant is unable to secure counsel by his own efforts, the State shall assign counsel for the defendant as prescribed by Act.
Article 1 of the Attorney-at-law Act (Mission of Attorney-at-Law) (1) The mission of an attorney-at-law shall be to defend fundamental human rights and realize the social justice. ”

“ However, an appeal on the ground of an unjustifiable sentencing shall only be permitted in cases where a death sentence, a sentence of life in prison, or a sentence of 10 years or more in prison or imprisonment are delivered, in accordance with the provision in Article 383 (4) of the Criminal Procedure Act, therefore, the ground for appeal that the sentencing is unjustifiable shall not be a legitimate ground for appeal in this case where a fine, which is a sentence lighter than the aforementioned ones, was imposed. ”

“ The unauthorized registration may infringe upon the distribution order of a fair and creditable product because such trademarks free-ride on the fame of the deceased and as a result has unfairly absorbed the consumer's purchase. So such trademark can be properly viewed as within the purview of Item 4 of Paragraph 1 of Article 7 of the Trademark Act. In such a case, had the artist been alive, it amounts to an infringement of personal rights as an artist to use the artist's signature indicating artworks as his or her own by means of unauthorized registration and proclamation. ”

“ Article 62 (1) of the former Criminal Act (The elements of probation) (1) An execution of a sentence of between more than 1 year and less that 5 years may be delayed where an attenuating circumstance exists in consideration of circumstances under Article 51 in case where an imprisonment or detainment of less than 3 years is sentenced; with the exception that a person who had been sentenced to a punishment of imprisonment or higher, and as to the sentence, less than five (5) years had passed since the completion of the enforcement of the sentence or since the exemption from its enforcement. ”