More than 3,500 people received dismissals of prosecution last year. A dismissal of prosecution means a criminal trial ends because of defects in the procedure for bringing charges.
According to materials Rep. Kim Yong-min of the Democratic Party of Korea received from the National Court Administration on the 6th, the number of people who received dismissals of prosecution at the first instance last year totaled 3,536. Previously, 2,884 people in 2021, 2,656 in 2022, 3,209 in 2023, and 3,478 in 2024 received dismissals of prosecution. This year, through June, 1,588 people received dismissals of prosecution.
A dismissal of prosecution is a procedure that ends a case without judging the merits when the indictment process violates the law. This applies when charges are brought without jurisdiction, in cases of double jeopardy, abuse of prosecutorial authority, or when the victim in an offense prosecutable upon complaint does not want punishment.
For example, in the first trial of former Gyeonggi Province Vice Governor for Peace Lee Hwa-young on charges including abuse of authority, the court ruled that the allegation of aid to North Korea constituted an abuse of prosecutorial authority and issued a dismissal of prosecution.
Meanwhile, in the appellate trial of a bribery case involving a police executive indicted by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), the court dismissed the prosecution for the private civilian donor who handed over the bribe and the accomplices, saying the CIO lacked indictment authority over them.
By contrast, dismissals of prosecution due to withdrawal of charges or the defendant's death have been trending down, from 1,913 people in 2021 to 1,857 last year.
Legal circles expect dismissals of prosecution to increase after the amended Criminal Procedure Act takes effect on Oct. 2. Prosecutors will no longer be able to conduct supplementary investigations, and the grounds for dismissals of prosecution will expand.
Under the amended Criminal Procedure Act, grounds for dismissal of prosecution include cases where charges were brought based on a significantly unlawful investigation and where the discretion to prosecute was markedly abused. Because the terms "significant" and "marked" are ambiguous, interpretations may differ by panel.