The Supreme Court has postponed the sentencing date for the final appeal in the case against first lady Kim Keon-hee over allegations including Deutsch Motors stock manipulation, which had been set for the 24th, and decided to refer the case to the full bench.
The Supreme Court said on the 23rd, "The case of violations of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act and others (defendant Kim Keon-hee) has had its sentencing date changed and tentatively set (to be designated later) for referral to the full bench." The No. 2 Petty Bench of the Supreme Court (Presiding Justice Park Young-jae) had originally planned to hand down the ruling in this case at 2 p.m. on the 24th.
The Supreme Court refers a case to the full bench for review if it is not appropriate for trial by a petty bench or if the petty bench fails to reach a consensus.
The Supreme Court did not state the reason for referring Kim's case to the full bench. However, there is speculation that conflicting lower court rulings in the "Myung Tae-gyun poll" case were the backdrop.
Kim was acquitted in the first and second trials of the charge of receiving a free opinion poll from "political broker" Myung Tae-gyun. In contrast, former President Yoon Suk-yeol received a partial guilty verdict at the first trial on the same charge.
The Supreme Court's No. 2 Petty Bench had initially planned to hold the sentencing for the final appeal in Kim's case on the 16th, but special counsel team chief Min Joong-ki asked the court to review the "Myung Tae-gyun poll" portion of Yoon's ruling. The Supreme Court accepted the request and postponed it to the 24th, then referred it again to the full bench.
In addition, the previous day, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon was fined 10 million won at the first trial on charges of receiving a poll from Myung and having a donor pay the expense on his behalf.
Unlike the lower courts in Kim's case, the first-instance court in Mayor Oh's case partially accepted the credibility of Myung's statements. After the guilty verdict, Oh's side protested, saying it was "a ruling handed down based only on possibility without evidence."