A Party to the Incident, but Not to the Case: "The State Treats Us Like Baggage"

At around 5 a.m. on May 22, 2022, Kim Jin-ju (a pseudonym), who was on her way home, lost consciousness after being roundhouse-kicked by a man in his 30s whom she had never met before while waiting for an elevator. The case, which became known to the world as the "Busan roundhouse kick incident," was initially handled under charges of "inflicting grave bodily harm" during the initial investigation, and then as "attempted murder" up through the first-instance trial, before a sexual motive was finally revealed at the appellate court. The decisive clue came from the jeans Kim was wearing. It was only during the appeal that additional DNA testing was conducted on the jeans, and after the assailant Lee's Y chromosome and other DNA were detected inside the jeans, charges of "attempted rape and murder" were belatedly applied.

The initial investigation was flawed, and from that point on, Kim became a "fighting victim." Attending every criminal hearing of her assailant, she gathered information piece by piece as if picking up scraps. However, because she was not a "party to the trial," even gaining access to the case records was not easy. After the criminal conviction of the perpetrator was finalized, Kim filed a state compensation lawsuit to hold the authorities accountable for the botched investigation. In the process, she requested permission from the court and the prosecution to inspect and copy the DNA appraisal report for her jeans—a key piece of evidence pointing to sexual assault—asking that the victim also be allowed to review the case records. However, the document Kim received was almost entirely blacked out, as shown in the photo.


The prosecution, which was storing the investigation records, cited "privacy protection" and "concerns over leaking investigative secrets" as reasons for withholding the appraisal report. However, for Kim, a party to the incident, this was hard to accept. It meant she herself was barred from seeing the results of the investigative agency's DNA testing on her own clothing. Given that she, as the victim, had no reason whatsoever to leak investigative secrets to the outside world, the prosecution's decision to withhold the document was difficult to comprehend.

Only after Kim visited the prosecutor's office in person was she able to obtain the original appraisal report. She was told that the disclosure was granted in accordance with the "Guidelines for the Processing of Inspection and Copying of Case Records." Yet, despite applying the same guidelines, the criteria determining why disclosure is granted in some cases and denied in others remain unclear. This is an ordeal experienced not just by Kim, but by many crime victims in reality.
    Concerns have been persistently raised that crime victims are alienated during the trial process despite being the "parties to the incident." Victims are being pushed aside even from the core evidence and investigative records regarding their own cases.

This is because the formal parties to a criminal trial are solely the prosecution, the defendant, and the court.
 
South Korea's criminal justice procedure has long focused on protecting the rights of the defendant against the state's formidable penal power. In contrast, crime victims, despite being the parties directly affected by the crime, have not been recognized as formal parties to criminal litigation, leaving them without an adequate role in the proceedings. This is why calls are mounting to reexamine whether it is truly justifiable to restrict victims' opportunities to participate in the investigation and trial process.
    Criticism is mounting that current legal systems leave victims alienated while concentrating on safeguarding defendants' rights of defense. Discussions are also underway on measures to better guarantee victims' rights during the investigation and trial stages. The report titled "Current Status and Improvement Measures for Victim Protection and Participation in Criminal Proceedings," published by the Judicial Policy Research Institute in July 2024, outlines concrete directions for reform. First, during the investigation phase, the legal grounds for notifying victims of investigation progress should be clarified, and victims and their legal representatives should be allowed to track case progress directly through the Korea Information System of Criminal-Justice Services (KICS). Some also suggest permitting the inspection of investigation records—within a scope that does not violate the perpetrator's personal data—to allow victims to challenge decisions not to transfer cases to the prosecution or non-indictment dispositions. During the trial phase, the report deemed that unified standards are necessary to permit, in principle, the inspection and copying of minimum essential information, such as indictments, evidence lists, and trial transcripts. It also suggested measures to substantially ensure victim participation in trials, such as designating separate seating for victims' attorneys in the courtroom or verifying the presence of the victim's side at the opening of trial hearings.
 
Even words of comfort suggesting it was time to return to everyday life felt like a second wound to crime victims. Kim Jin-ju, too, had to give up her livelihood and follow every hearing.

Because no one had "properly" informed Kim Jin-ju.
 
During the interview, Kim Jin-ju used the word "tilted." No one—neither lawyers nor journalists—is immune to becoming a victim of crime, yet the investigation and trial process that crime victims face sounded less like the scales of justice and more like a tilted seesaw that is heavily stacked against victims.
   
Kim Jin-ju's fight against the state has reached a conclusion. On February 13, the Seoul Central District Court acknowledged the investigative agency's flawed investigation and ordered the state to pay 15 million won in damages. It came 3 years and 8 months after the incident occurred. The Ministry of Justice gave up an appeal and apologized to the victim. This was made possible because Kim refused to give up and continued speaking out outside the courtroom for 3 years and 8 months.

The perpetrator in the Busan roundhouse kick incident is currently on another trial for retaliatory intimidation against the victim. On September 9, about a week after a phone interview with Kim Jin-ju, the presiding judge of the 2nd Criminal Division of the Busan High Court questioned during witness examination whether the victim had also engaged in considerable media play throughout the trial. The judge added that the case felt as though it was becoming politicized.

Victims began speaking out outside the courtroom because there was no place for them to speak inside it. Even though supplementary investigations prompted by the victim's appeals led to the assailant's charges being upgraded, and the court also held the state liable for the botched investigation, the bench still expressed a negative nuance regarding the victim's refusal to "stay silent." This vividly reflects the grim reality that crime victims face in South Korean society.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.