The Supreme Court ruled that the university president's use of the education expense for legal costs related to educational facilities cannot be punished for violating the Private School Act and embezzlement. The Private School Act strictly distinguishes between money used for corporate accounts (for managing the school corporation) and money used for university operations and educational purposes (education expense).
The Supreme Court's third division (Chief Justice Eom Sang-pil) noted on the 8th that it overturned the second trial ruling, which sentenced Shin Ku, former president of Sejong University, to a fine of 2.5 million won for violating the Private School Act and embezzlement, and sent the case back to the Seoul Central District Court with a ruling of partial acquittal.
Shin, the former president, was indicted for the allegation of expending about 881 million won in legal costs related to school civil and criminal lawsuits from September 2012 to October 2017, when he was the president of Sejong University.
The Private School Act stipulates that only expenses directly necessary for educational facilities and equipment should be made from the education expense, and the prosecution judged that Shin spent legal expenses unrelated to this from the education expense.
The matters for which Shin expended expenses from the education expense include: ▲ lawsuits related to the dismissal, refusal of reappointment, and wage payment obligations for faculty and staff; ▲ damage compensation lawsuits related to illegal acts committed by school employees; ▲ lawsuits for the delivery of buildings purchased to be used as classrooms; and ▲ lawsuits regarding the ownership of artifacts in the school museum.
The first trial acquitted some of Shin's charges while imposing a fine of 2.5 million won, determining that the expenditures on the delivery lawsuits for buildings for classrooms and the ownership lawsuits for artifacts were justified.
However, the second trial overturned the first trial's judgment on all of Shin's charges as guilty, determining that all school-related legal expenses should be paid from the corporate accounts. The sentence remained the same as in the first trial, with a fine of 2.5 million won.
This time, the Supreme Court found the first trial's judgment to be correct. In the case of the delivery lawsuit for classroom buildings, the court judged it to be a lawsuit for facilities directly necessary for education, as the building is registered as a basic educational asset and was actually used as a classroom. It also considered that the artifacts related to the ownership lawsuit were registered as general property for the school and had been used for the education of history department students.