People keep their distance and practice social distancing as they wait in a line to enter a courthouse in southern Seoul on March 30, 2020. (Yonhap)
DAEJEON, Sept. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — With South Korean courts moving heaven and earth to cope with the spread of the coronavirus, there was an unusual scene in which a string of court sentencings were provided in the blink of an eye.
The final trials in a string of criminal appeal cases that the Daejeon District Court in Daejeon, a central city 150 km south of Seoul, held last week were wrapped up with extraordinary speed.
The court said the date of the final trials was arranged based on consideration that the number of continued trials was too high.
Asking for generous understanding, the court said it would issue sentences as quickly as possible to prevent the defendants from staying in a confined place for a lengthy period.
The appeals procedure which is explained to each defendant whenever sentencing is undertaken, was instead explained only one time at the beginning of the final trial.
Unlike the traditional way of sentencing which follows the sequence of incident number regardless of whether the defendants are indicted without detention or not, the court gave sentences en masse first to those who were indicted without detention.
The court also delivered the thrust of the sentencing only briefly after checking the defendant’s name and birth date.
Defendants who were waiting in the front row of the audience seats were sentenced without even having to move to the defendant’s seat. They simply stood up from the audience seats and listened to the sentencing.
It took just 10 minutes to complete sentencing in 12 cases (14 defendants). In other words, it took just 45 seconds per case.
Health workers disinfect a court room in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province on March 1, 2020, as South Korea struggles to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. (Yonhap)
The defendants, in general, appeared to understand the need for speedy sentencing, but some said it was too fast.
“I came here from Gyeonggi Province to attend this trial. I felt dejected after the sentencing took less than one minute.” said a family member of a defendant who received a suspended jail sentence.
Many in the legal community said that this situation reflects the pile-up of cases due to the delay in overall court schedules resulting from the spread of the coronavirus.
The online-based monthly bulletin of judicial statistics showed that when it comes to the criminal cases which belong to the jurisdiction of the Daejeon District Court, the number of unresolved cases stood at 2,671 (3,042 defendants) last month, the highest monthly figure in five years.
This figure is higher than that at other district courts, including the Suwon District Court (2,665 cases) and the Seoul Central District Court (2,246 cases).
“Seeking generous understanding from defendants is needed not to damage their trust and confidence in the legal system itself,” a lawyer said.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
