Former and current executives of the Korean Medical Association Organization under investigation on suspicion of inciting mass resignations by resident doctors protesting the government's expansion of medical school enrollment have been cleared of charges after a little over two years.
The Public Security Investigation Division 3 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Director General Kim Jeong-ok) said on the 24th that it had decided not to indict 19 suspects related to the conflict between the medical community and the government, including four figures from the Korean Medical Association Organization such as former chair Ju Su-ho, chair Kim Taek-woo, and executive vice president Park Myeong-ha, who were accused of interference with business and violations of the Medical Service Act.
They were suspected of instigating resident doctors protesting the government's 2024 policy to increase medical school enrollment by 2,000 to submit resignation letters or of providing legal support that aided and abetted collective action.
As surgeries were canceled at training hospitals where resident doctors worked and gaps in medical services occurred, the Ministry of Health and Welfare reported the association's executives to the police in February that year. The police viewed that they had interfered with the work of training hospitals and, in May last year, forwarded the case to the prosecution without detention.
The prosecution requested a supplemental investigation once, but the police conducted additional inquiries and sent the case back to the prosecution.
The prosecution concluded that there was no confirmation that the association's executives directly ordered resident doctors to resign or had them resolve to carry out mass resignations. It was understood that resident doctors who submitted resignation letters stated during the investigation that it was a voluntary personal choice and that there had been no resolution to conduct a mass resignation.
However, the prosecution summarily indicted 10 suspects for separate illegal acts identified during the conflict between the medical community and the government.
Former association chair Im Hyeon-taek was not found to have aided and abetted resident doctors' collective action, but was summarily indicted on suspicion of violating the Act on the Collection and Use of Donations during a fundraising process to support resident doctors who resigned.
Seven people who circulated a list of doctors and medical students who did not participate in the collective action in the so-called "blacklist" format were also summarily indicted on suspicion of violating the Act on Punishment of Crime of Stalking.
In contrast, Gi Dong-hun, the head of the group who was suspected of aiding the posting of the list on the doctors and medical students' community "Medistaff," was not charged because the suspicion was not substantiated.
A public health doctor accused of leaking a list of public health doctors dispatched to medical institutions was also cleared of charges. The prosecution determined that the public health doctor had passed the list received from the competent public official to a colleague for the purpose of information exchange and found it difficult to recognize criminal intent.