Supreme Court Overturns Lower Court Ruling and Remands Case to Incheon District Court
The Supreme Court has ruled that it is unlawful to retroactively apply the revised Road Traffic Act, which strengthened the standards for punishing drunk driving, to offenses committed before its enforcement date.
According to the legal community on December 26, the Supreme Court's Third Division (Presiding Justice Lee Heungku) overturned the lower court's decision that sentenced Mr. A to one year in prison for violating the Road Traffic Act (drunk driving) and fraud, and remanded the case to the Incheon District Court.
Mr. A was indicted on charges of drunk driving for driving approximately 36 kilometers from Pocheon to the Guri area in Gyeonggi Province on March 5, 2023. At the time, his blood alcohol concentration was 0.183%, which is above the license revocation threshold. Mr. A had a prior record of being fined for drunk driving in 2015. In March 2023, he was also accused of borrowing 20 million won using a guarantor and failing to repay it.
The court of first instance found Mr. A guilty of drunk driving and sentenced him to one year in prison, while acquitting him of the fraud charge. The appellate court dismissed both the defendant's and the prosecutor's appeals, upholding the first-instance ruling.
However, the Supreme Court's judgment differed. The bench stated, "The lower court maintained its decision by applying the provisions of Article 148-2, Paragraph 1 of the Road Traffic Act to acts that occurred before the enforcement of this regulation," and added, "There was an error in the judgment that affected the outcome, as it violated the principle of legality and the prohibition of retroactive application of criminal law." The court further explained, "The conviction for violating the Road Traffic Act must be overturned," and, "However, since the sentences for drunk driving and fraud were combined into a single sentence, the entire verdict must be overturned."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
