Public institution employee acquitted of false submission of national project documents... There is no intention, and the competent authority is aware of the shortcomings.

An employee of a government or local government-funded agency who was suspected of creating and submitting false official documents in connection with a large-scale national project was cleared of the charges after an investigation by the prosecution.

According to the legal community on the 30th, the Masan Branch of the Changwon District Prosecutors' Office acquitted Mr. A, a man who was sent on charges of obstruction of official duties on the 13th, due to insufficient evidence.

Mr. A, who worked at a foundation funded by the government and local governments, was in charge of licensing-related work for a theme park selected as a national project in 2019 and applied for a ‘pre-completion use permit’ from the relevant ministry.

During this process, Mr. A was accused of writing the completion rate as 100% in the supervisor's opinion and arbitrarily fabricating and submitting an image of the seal of a private sector supervisor who was not present at the time. At the time, construction in some areas had not actually been completed.

Accordingly, local government B, which was in charge of management and supervision, accused Mr. A of interfering with the legitimate performance of public officials' duties by falsifying documents to make it appear that the entire process had been completed, despite knowing that there were unfinished parts.

However, Mr. A denied the charges. At the time of applying for a use permit, the supervisory director had already confirmed and stamped appropriate construction on the ‘Construction Project Management Report’, which is a higher-level document, so he only believed in this and processed the work, and there was no intention to deceive.

The prosecution also accepted this argument. It is difficult to say that Mr. A only recognized that the construction was completed based on the construction project management report, and had the intention of making a false statement. The prosecution also determined that since the government agency with final approval authority was already aware of the fact that some facilities were inadequate through on-site inspections, the written opinion submitted by Mr. A could not be considered to have caused public officials to misunderstand or to have influenced their review judgments to the extent that they were flawed.

Attorney Jeon Kang-woo of Daeryun Law Firm, who represented Mr. A, said, “The crime of obstruction of official duties can only be established by taking advantage of the ignorance of the other public official, but in this case, the crime was not established because the government office in charge was already aware of the current situation.” He added, “We were able to receive a decision not to prosecute by carefully explaining that the work in question was not an arbitrary act, but normal work according to the order of approval, and that there was no intention of making false statements.”

Reporter Jeong Cheol-wook

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Public institution employee acquitted of false submission of national project documents... There is no intention, and the competent authority is aware of the deficiencies (Shortcut)