After a prison sentence was finalized for Media Watch chief Byun Hee-jae on charges of spreading false information claiming that reports related to Choi Seo-won's (formerly Choi Soon-sil) tablet PC were fabricated, Byun filed a trial petition but failed to clear the threshold of the Constitutional Court.
According to legal sources, the designated panel of the Constitutional Court dismissed Byun's trial petition at the preliminary review stage on the 21st. The panel was said to have determined that the petition did not fall under grounds subject to a trial-petition review.
Byun was brought to trial in June 2018 on charges including disseminating false information through the booklet "The curse of Sohn Suk-hee" and Media Watch articles, to the effect that "JTBC, in collusion with former Blue House administrative officer Kim Han-su, secured the tablet PC, manipulated its files, and reported it as if it had been used by Choi Seo-won."
The case concluded on Apr. 12 when the Supreme Court's Second Division (presiding Justice Kwon Young-jun) upheld the lower court's sentence of two years in prison for Byun. It came nearly eight years after the indictment.
Byun's side filed a trial petition on Apr. 10, saying the right to a fair trial was violated because the court rejected evidence-investigation requests without reasonable grounds, but it was not accepted at the preliminary review stage.
Meanwhile, from Apr. 12, the start date of the trial-petition system, to the 21st of this month, the designated panel's preliminary reviews, held five times, dismissed about 350 petitions. No cases have been referred to the full bench to date.