Supreme Court: Courts Should Ask Prosecutors to Clarify Ambiguous Indictments

The Supreme Court has ruled that if the facts of an indictment are open to multiple interpretations and the applicable legal provisions are unclear, the trial court should ask prosecutors for clarification.

The Supreme Court's Second Division (Presiding Justice Uhm Sang-pil) announced on June 5 that it overturned the lower court's ruling, which had sentenced a defendant identified as A to a fine for violating the Personal Information Protection Act, and remanded the case to the Jeonju District Court.

The defendant A, a mobile phone retailer, was accused of asking B, an employee in charge of personal information processing at a telecom company, to look up a victim's phone number and receiving it without the victim's consent at an office in Jeonju in February 2023.

A was also accused of requesting and receiving the victim's phone number through the same method without consent from B in June of the same year.

The first and second-instance courts found A guilty and sentenced the defendant to a fine of 3 million won.

The legal provisions applied by the lower court were Article 71, Item 1 and Article 17, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the former Personal Information Protection Act.

These provisions penalize individuals who receive personal information knowing that a personal information handler is providing it without the consent of the data subject.

However, the Supreme Court sent the case back, stating that the lower court failed to fulfill the necessary clarification and deliberation even though the applicable legal provisions were unclear.

The Supreme Court noted that while the same legal provisions as the lower court could be applied to the indictment facts, there was also room to apply Article 71, Item 5 and Article 59, Item 2 of the former Personal Information Protection Act.

The latter provision penalizes a person who receives personal information for for-profit or wrongful purposes, knowing that a person who processes or has processed personal information is leaking personal information acquired in the course of their duties.

The Supreme Court stated that if telecom employee B is assumed to be a "person who processes or has processed personal information," it is also possible to interpret that A received the personal information for wrongful purposes while knowing that B was leaking it.

The court pointed out, "If different interpretations of the contents stated in the indictment are possible, making the intent of the prosecution unclear and potentially hindering the defendant's exercise of the right to defense, the lower court should have asked the prosecutor to clarify which offense the indictment was brought under to make the litigation relationship clear."

The Supreme Court stated that the lower court misunderstood the legal principles regarding the establishment of the crime of violating the Personal Information Protection Act and the exercise of the right to clarification, failing to conduct necessary deliberation and thus affecting the judgment.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.