Former Supreme Court Justice Kwon Soon-il (Judicial Research and Training Institute class 14) was indicted on suspicion of engaging in legal defense work for Hwacheon Daeyu Asset Management, the operator of the Daejang-dong development project, without registering as a lawyer after retirement, but the court dismissed the indictment at the first trial. The court found that prosecutors conducted an unlawful investigation.
On the 11th, Kim Dae-gyu, presiding judge of the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 21, dismissed the indictment in the case against former Justice Kwon on charges of violating the Attorney‑at‑Law Act.
Former Justice Kwon served on the Supreme Court from Sep. 2014 to Sep. 2020. After retiring, from January to August 2021, without registering as a lawyer with the Korean Bar Association, Kwon served as an adviser to Hwacheon Daeyu, whose majority shareholder is Daejang-dong developer Kim Man-bae, and carried out legal defense work such as drafting legal documents related to civil and administrative lawsuits. The advisory fees received from Hwacheon Daeyu during this period totaled 150 million won. Prosecutors indicted former Justice Kwon in Aug. 2024.
The court found that the offense of violating the Attorney‑at‑Law Act applied to former Justice Kwon does not fall within the scope of investigative initiation by prosecutors under the Prosecutors' Office Act. In such cases, prosecutors may initiate an investigation only if the offense is directly related to another case they are currently investigating and has been detected by the prosecutor. However, the Attorney‑at‑Law Act violation was not detected by a prosecutor; it was included in a complaint filed in Sep. 2020.
After transferring the case to the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency in Jan. 2022, prosecutors took it back in Sep. 2023. The court said, "It amounts only to continuing an unlawful investigation for the prosecution to take back and investigate the case before the police exercised their primary authority to close the investigation."
After the ruling, former Justice Kwon told reporters, "We must no longer tolerate the practice of distorting the law and fabricating evidence to create crimes for political purposes."