Prosecution After Police Mistake and Fine Payment... Supreme Court: "No Indictment for Road Traffic Act Violation"

"Defendant's Rights Must Be Protected"
"Case Corresponds to Final Judgment, 'Acquittal'"

The Supreme Court has ruled that if a police officer mistakenly applies the wrong law and imposes only a fine, but the individual has already paid the fine, criminal punishment cannot be imposed again. The Court determined that additional criminal proceedings cannot be initiated for the same incident after the fact.

According to the legal community on May 28, the Supreme Court's Second Division (Presiding Justice Park Youngjae) finalized a lower court's verdict on May 1, acquitting a driver indicted for violating the Road Traffic Act (refusal to submit to a breathalyzer test). An acquittal in this context means that the conditions for initiating criminal proceedings have not been met, and it has the same effect as not indicting the individual.

The driver was indicted for refusing a police officer's request for a breathalyzer test after a report in June 2023 that he was operating an electric wheel under the influence of alcohol in the early morning. Under the Road Traffic Act, an electric wheel is classified as a motorized bicycle, like a scooter, and drivers who operate such vehicles under the influence or refuse a breathalyzer test are subject to fines or imprisonment.

At the time, the responding police officer mistakenly identified the electric wheel as a personal mobility device, such as an electric kickboard, and imposed a fine of 100,000 won. The driver subsequently paid the fine. However, the police later reversed the fine decision, and the prosecutor indicted the driver for violating the Road Traffic Act.

The court found that the Road Traffic Act stipulates that "a person who has paid a fine shall not be punished again for the same offense," and therefore concluded that the driver could not be punished. The court viewed this case as one in which a final judgment had already been rendered on the same charge and issued an acquittal.

The first-instance court stated, "The officer in charge or the chief of the police station cannot arbitrarily cancel a fine notification once payment has been made," and added, "Even if the law was incorrectly applied due to an error by the officer in charge, the defendant's procedural rights must be protected."

The prosecutor appealed, but both the appellate court and the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion. The Supreme Court stated, "The facts of this case correspond to a situation where a final judgment has been rendered, so the lower court's acquittal, which maintained this view, did not misunderstand the legal principles regarding the effect of a fine notification."