By Moon Gwang-lip
Staff Reporter

Civic groups questioned Wednesday’s appellate court ruling acquitting two lawmakers indicted for bribery and slander.

The Seoul High Court acquitted Rhee In-je, opposition lawmaker and former presidential candidate, and Rhyu Si-min, ruling Uri Party lawmaker, by overturning a lower court ruling that had sentenced them to a jail-term and fines, respectively.

This series of lenient court rulings on lawmakers, including four other legislators saved from losing their parliamentary seats in May, has incited a public outcry regarding the justice dispensed to law-breaking politicians.

Civic groups see this as evidence of the court’s subjection to political power.

``The court favors those who have been a serious problem in past Korean society and that’s still the case when we see this series of lenient court decisions,’’ said Chung Koo-chin, chief manager of the National Solidarity for Judiciary Reform.

``The court should bear in mind that the law exists to protect the weak from the strong, not vice versa,’’ he added.

The court cleared Rhee on charges of accepting 250 million won from the opposing Grand National Party (GNP) during the presidential race in 2002 in return for supporting the party’s presidential hopeful Lee Hoi-chang against Roh Moo-hyun of the Uri Party.

He was indicted in May 2004 and sentenced to eight months in prison with the term suspended for two years in October of that year.

The court said in the ruling, ``Kim Yoon-soo, then special advisor to Rhee, who was suspected of having delivered the money to him, has been consistent in stating why and when the money was delivered to the lawmaker. So we concluded we couldn’t verify the bribery charges against Rhee just with Kim’s testimony alone.’’

Rhee, former labor minister as well as Kyonggi Province governor, vied with Lee for the then-ruling GNP presidential ticket in 1997.

The court also acquitted Rhyu, an outspoken maverick reformist, of making the false statement public, reversing a lower court ruling that fined him 500,000 won.

Rhyu was indicted last October on charges of publishing the false statement in his promotional leaflets during the general election campaign in April 2004.

``Rhyu should have checked the truth of what he was going to say before making it public. But he seems to have had no clue at that time it was false,’’ the court said.

The court decision came after the appellate court last month acquitted four of five lawmakers who received verdicts that would have deprived them of their lawmaker status.

According to electoral laws, lawmakers sentenced to imprisonment or fined more than 1 million won lose their seat.

Reps. Oh Young-sik, Moon Byung-ho and Song Young-gil from the Uri Party and Rep. Jung Doo-un from the GNP were all given lighter sentences for illegal electioneering, saving their political positions.

Only Rep. Kim Ki-suk of the Uri Party was ordered to pay 3 million won in fines for illegal campaigning, leaving him at risk of losing his seat.

According to the Supreme Court, only seven out of 46 lawmakers who were indicted for illegal electioneering during the last general election lost their jobs.

In addition, Uri Party lawmaker Shin Geh-ryeun, who was given a heavy sentence in the appellate court on charges of receiving 100 million in bribes in March 2004, is yet to be notified of the schedule regarding the final decision by the Supreme Court, raising a suspicion that the court is too tolerant of lawmakers’ legal trespass.