On the 1st, Lee Jae-myung, the candidate from the Democratic Party of Korea, received a Supreme Court decision to overturn a lower court's ruling regarding a violation of the Public Official Election Act on guilty grounds, leading to comments that "Lee's judicial risk continues to persist."

Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, is speaking at the policy agreement ceremony held at the Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Nov. 1. /Courtesy of News1

The case regarding the violation of the Public Official Election Act will be retried at the Seoul High Court. The case will not be assigned to the same court that previously ruled all not guilty at the second trial, but rather to a different court.

An attorney said, "The high court panel handling a case that the Supreme Court overturned on guilty grounds often arrives at guilty conclusions, just like the Supreme Court."

Another attorney noted, "The assignment and proceedings of the Seoul High Court case will be reported in the media, and this could likely act as a negative factor for Lee in the presidential election process."

In addition to the election law case, Lee is facing four other trials: ▲ the perjury solicitation case ▲ the preferential treatment and Seongnam FC case related to the Daejang-dong, Wirye, and Baekhyeon-dong developments ▲ the illegal remittance to North Korea by SSANGBANGWOOL ▲ and the corporate card misappropriation case. Among these, the perjury solicitation case has progressed to the appeals court after being ruled not guilty in the first trial, while the other cases remain in the first trial stage.

In this regard, Lee claims that if he is elected president, all ongoing trials should be halted based on Article 84 of the Constitution. Article 84 states that "the president shall not be subject to criminal prosecution during their term, except in cases of insurrection or foreign exchange crimes."

There are differing interpretations of this provision. One interpretation holds that "cases that were already indicted before the presidential election will continue to proceed even after the president takes office." Conversely, another interpretation suggests that "even trials that have already been underway before the presidential election will all be suspended during their term."

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