SEOUL– The Supreme Court on Thursday approved lower courts’ rulings in favor of the seizure of a residential building owned by former President Chun Doo-hwan’s family in western Seoul but opposed an actual property forfeiture, citing Chun’s death.
The lawsuit was filed by one of Chun’s daughters-in-law in October 2018 after prosecutors seized her house, an annex inside the ex-president’s residential compound in Yeonhui-dong, to collect unpaid penalties from him.
Chun, a former Army general who seized power in a 1979 military coup and served as president from 1980 to 1988, was ordered by the Supreme Court in 1997 to forfeit more than 220 billion won (US$186 million) for amassing slush funds. But Chun had paid only 57 percent, or 124.9 billion won, of the total until his death last November.
Upholding district and appellate courts’ dismissals of the lawsuit, the Supreme Court said the lower courts’ rulings in favor of the confiscation of the annex building are acceptable, as the money used to acquire the building came from Chun’s slush funds.
But the top court opposed the execution of the seizure of the annex building, saying a pecuniary punishment, such as property forfeiture, cannot be executed if the person who is tried in court dies.
In this regard, a Supreme Court official said, “The latest ruling explicitly confirmed that a property seizure cannot be continued in principle after the death of the defendant.
In a related development in February this year, the Seoul Administrative Court ruled against the seizure of the main building of Chun’s house.
Source: Yonhap News Agency