Supreme Court Decided to Invalidate the Election in the Dongdaemoon Eul District

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled for Huh In-Hui, candidate of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), who filed a lawsuit on the invalidation of the election after he had lost by three votes at the Dongdaemoon Eul District election last April, 13th.

This is the first time for the Supreme Court to decide to invalidate the election in relation to the 16th general election. Rep. Kim Young-Ku of the Grand National Party (GNP) lost his membership in the National Assembly as of yesterday followed by the ruling, the number of GNP’s seat consequently decreased from 133 to 132. The re-election at the Dongdaemoon Eul District will be held on December 25.

The Supreme Court (the 3rd section, justice of the Supreme Court Lee Kyoo-Hong) conceded Huh’s lawsuit on the invalidation of the election (preliminary claims) against the Eul District Election Administration Committee. However, the Supreme Court turned down the lawsuit on the invalidation of the election of Rep. Kim (main claim).

The candidate Huh lost by 11 votes in the first count of the ballot. However, after the recount, Huh lost by 3 votes. The Court said that ``Kim had fourteen people, including his party district members, secretary and relatives, who voted for him after having had them register for the false residency right before the general election. Huh also had 9 people, including his parents, register for the false residency before the election.``

The Court said, ``The result of the election could have changed if there was no false registration of residents since the number of the falsely registered residents exceeded the number of the vote difference (3 votes) between the two candidates. The election itself is invalid because the violation of the election law affected the result of the election.``

However, with regard to Huh’s lawsuit on the invalidation of the election of Kim based on the reason that there was problem in the process of handling of 26 votes, which were invalidated after counting, the Court turned it down by claiming that ``there was no problem in the ballot counting.``

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court (the 3rd section) turned down the Grand National Party’s lawsuit on the invalidation of the election against the Shiheng City (Kyunggi Province) District Election Administration Committee (elected candidate Park Byung-Yun of the MDP). The Court said that ``it is difficult to accept the plaintiff’s claim that Rep. Park’s distribution of goods and moneys affected the result of the election.``

The court decision on four other lawsuits on the invalidation of the election in regard to the 16th general election is pending.

Lee Soo-Hyung sooh@donga.com