Over the past three years, the acceptance rate for retrial cases citing human rights violations by prosecutors stood at 41.7%. During the same period, in 58.8% of retrial cases prosecutors sought acquittals or dismissal of indictment.
According to prosecutors on Apr. 27, since 2023 the number of retrial petitions related to past public security cases received annually by the Seoul High Prosecutors Office and the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office rose nearly sixfold from 23 to 137 in 2025, and the number of cases in which retrials were opened climbed more than twofold from 23 to 49.
During the same period, prosecutors offered opinions that opening retrials was justified in 91 of 218 public security-related retrial petitions filed with the Seoul High Prosecutors Office and the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office (41.7%), and in 63 of 107 cases in which retrials were opened (58.8%) they sought acquittals or dismissal of indictment.
Prosecutors said this was the result of shifting their view toward strengthening prosecutors' duty of objectivity in retrial proceedings. They noted that the purpose of the retrial system is to remedy wrongful harm caused by human rights violations and unlawful investigations, and that this change responds to criticism that prosecutors' case handling had not reflected those values.
Prosecutors said reducing the petitioner's burden to prove grounds for opening a retrial is also part of this change. For example, in a retrial petition filed by the family of the late Gen. Kim, who, as an army corps commander, opposed the May 16, 1961, military coup and was sentenced to prison by the Revolutionary Tribunal for an anti-revolutionary crime, prosecutors in January offered the Seoul High Court an opinion favoring the opening of a retrial.
In this case, only the judgment remained without any investigative records, but prosecutors analyzed media reports and verified historical materials and confirmed that Gen. Kim had been detained for about 125 days without a warrant. Prosecutors said this "broke from the past practice of offering opinions to deny retrial openings unless definitive materials could be secured to prove past unlawful detention, etc."
Prosecutors said they are also making efforts to seek substantive positions of guilt or innocence after a retrial is opened. After reviewing the admissibility and weight of the original judgment's evidence, if they determine there is insufficient evidence to prove the charges, they seek acquittal rather than a blank sentencing request.
For example, there is a retrial case involving a person who was sentenced to prison in 1987 on charges of attempting to flee to North Korea during repair work on a GP barrier line. After reviewing findings by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, prosecutors recently sought an acquittal, saying it was hard to conclude the intent was to defect to North Korea and that, excluding an unlawful confession the defendant gave while unlawfully detained, there was no direct evidence.
A prosecution official said, "Within a framework that maintains legal stability, we will operate the retrial system in a way that considers both achieving justice in individual cases and restoring public trust."