Supreme Court Judged Guilty of Governor Lim Chang-Ryul, Reversing the Decision of Appellate Court

The first Division of the Supreme Court (chief Justice Park Jae-Yoon) reversed the decision of the appellate court that governor Lim Chang-Ryul is innocent from the charge of receiving 100 million won bribe to prevent the work-out of The Kyonggi Bank and returned the case to the Seoul High Court.

If governor Lim is sentenced to imprisonment (including a suspended sentence), he will be dismissed from his office and lose his eligibility for the next election.

The Court judged that “Mr. Lim confessed that he received money from Soe Ee-Seok, then governor of the Kyonggi Bank, with a solicitation to protect the bank from work-out in May 1998 and there is no reason to suspect the credibility of the confession.”

The Court described that the money that governor Lim received was a lobbyist fund, considering that the work-out process of Kyonggi Bank was a critical issue at the time when Mr. Lim received the money, Mr. Lim returned the money after his lobby failed, and Mr. Lim received a receipt in which they put the date retroactively to a previous day.

Governor Lim, indicted for the charge of receiving 100 million won bribe for the lobby to prevent the Kyonggi Bank from work-out during the local government election in May 1998, was sentenced to one-year imprisonment with two year suspension of sentence by the court of first instance but the appellate court judged him innocent.

The 3rd Criminal Division of Seoul High Court judged governor Lim innocent at the review of an appellate court, “it is true that Mr. Lim received money but there is no enough evidence that he was solicited.”

In addition, at the review of an appellate court, the court exceptionally decided to change the accusations by adding the charge of the violation of the political fund law but the prosecution refused to do so, inciting the conflicts on the judiciary decision about bribery between the court and the prosecution.

sooh@donga.com