Supreme Court Reaches Final Verdict After 1 Year 8 Months
Supports Leak Suspicion Involving Twin Daughters
7 Indirect Facts Recognized as Guilty Evidence
Increased Possibility of Guilty Verdicts for Daughters
[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The Supreme Court has delivered its final verdict on the case involving the leak of exam questions to twin daughters, which sparked social controversy. Despite debates over whether a guilty verdict could be confirmed without 'direct evidence' of the leak, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling sentencing the twins' father to imprisonment. This comes 1 year and 8 months after the allegations first surfaced.
A Ruling Demonstrating the Evidentiary Power of Circumstantial Evidence
The Supreme Court's Second Division (Presiding Justice No Jeong-hee) on the 12th affirmed the second trial's sentence of 3 years imprisonment for Hyun Mo (53), the former head of academic affairs at Sookmyung Girls' High School, who was prosecuted on charges of obstruction of business. In the trial stemming from suspicions raised in July 2018 in the Gangnam academy district of Seoul, no direct evidence was presented proving that Hyun leaked exam questions to his twins in advance. This was because there were no CCTV cameras installed inside the school's academic office. In other words, the trial proceeded without decisive evidence such as Hyun taking answer sheets out of the academic office safe to copy or make notes, or showing them to his daughters. Hyun claimed, "My two daughters studied on their own and achieved good grades; there was no leak of answer sheets."
However, the first trial ruling in May last year sentenced him to 3 years and 6 months imprisonment, stating that "Hyun is lying." The second trial in November last year upheld the guilty verdict but reduced the sentence to 3 years imprisonment, considering that Hyun's wife was supporting their children and elderly mother, and that the two daughters were also facing criminal trials. The second trial court stated, "Although there is no direct evidence, a comprehensive review of numerous circumstantial evidences sufficiently proves the accusation that the daughters referred to the answers during the exam." The Supreme Court's Second Division accepted this second trial judgment on the same day, reaffirming that a guilty verdict is possible if there is no reasonable doubt based on circumstantial evidence.
The court previously cited seven pieces of circumstantial evidence as grounds for the guilty verdict. The court focused on the fact that the twin daughters' grades improved sharply at the same time, while there was no remarkable improvement in mock exams taken around the same period. The court viewed the twins' consistent mistakes on descriptive questions, the 'tiny memo' notes of correct answers written at the top of the exam papers, the fact that they all got wrong the questions whose answers were corrected the day before the exam, and solving difficult physics problems without showing the process as signs of answer sheet leakage. Additionally, Hyun, who had the authority to approve the exam question documents, knew the password to the safe where the exam answers were kept, and he stayed alone in the academic office on weekends or after work under the pretext of overtime, which the court considered circumstantial evidence that he had opened the safe. The Supreme Court stated regarding the lower court's ruling, "There is no error such as misunderstanding the degree of proof required for a guilty verdict in criminal trials or the evidentiary power of circumstantial evidence."
A Symbolic Case Revealing Problems in Korean Education
With the father's guilty verdict confirmed, the likelihood of the daughters receiving similar rulings has increased. The twin daughters were initially undergoing juvenile protection trials at the Seoul Family Court, but as they continued to deny the charges, the case was returned to the prosecution. Subsequently, the prosecution indicted the sisters without detention on charges of obstruction of business, and a formal trial is currently underway at the Seoul Central District Court.
This case attracted significant attention from the suspicion and investigation stages as it was seen as a reflection of the 'overall crisis in school education.' The Ministry of Education, prompted by this case, recommended the introduction of the anti-nepotism system to all national and public high schools nationwide. Sixteen metropolitan and provincial education offices across the country, except Jeonbuk, incorporated the principle of 'prohibiting teachers and their children from working at the same school in national and public high schools' into their secondary personnel management standards and began implementation. Beyond strengthening the management of school exam questions and revising the internal grading system, voices have grown louder advocating for increasing the proportion of regular admissions based on the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) in university admissions. The Sookmyung Girls' High School twins case has been cited as a good example supporting such calls for expanding regular admissions. The institutional characteristics of early admissions, which heavily depend on internal grades, are said to have fueled Hyun's 'distorted educational zeal.'
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