Jeju Attorney Office Assistance | Client Accused of Domestic Violence Defended Into a Protective Disposition With Daeryun's Help

The account shared by the client who came to the Jeju attorney office is as follows.

The client frequently argued with the client's wife.

This was because the wife's words and conduct were harsh, and she grew angry at the slightest provocation.

The client said that they had endured this many times.

However, after a serious quarrel with the wife on the day of the incident, the client grew angry at her walking around the house with excessively loud footsteps and pushed her face with a hand.

When the wife continued to hurl insults, the client could not contain this anger and threw a cup that was nearby.

The wife reported this to the police, and the charge of assault was applied to the client.

If assault occurs within the home, between family members, as in the client's case, it is not classified as a criminal case but as a ‘domestic protection case’.

▣ Act on Special Cases concerning the Punishment of Crimes of Domestic Violence Article 2

Domestic violence means an act between family members that causes physical, mental, or financial harm.

Family members include a common-law spouse and extend to cohabiting relatives regardless of the degree of kinship, so the scope is recognized relatively broadly.

If a judge finds it necessary for the smooth investigation and hearing of a domestic protection case or for the protection of the victim, the judge may impose temporary measures on the person who committed the domestic violence.

▣ Act on Special Cases concerning the Punishment of Crimes of Domestic Violence Article 40 (Protective Disposition)

*A judge may not impose more than 200 hours of community service or a course attendance order under Item 4, and may not impose the remaining protective dispositions other than Item 4 for a period exceeding six months.

A judge may impose the dispositions under each of the above items concurrently (imposing several dispositions together). Ordinarily, because the probation office, the enforcing agency, needs to maintain oversight of the subject for the effective enforcement of the community service or course attendance order under Item 4, in practice the probation under Item 5 is often imposed concurrently.

The victim habitually engaged in verbal abuse and, at the time of the incident, scratched the client and engaged in other such conduct, yet the client, in a spirit of remorse for the wrongdoing, did not assert any harm and did not seek the victim's punishment.

On this basis, the office requested that the client's sincere remorse, inferable from these facts, be taken into account.

The victim had taken on a large debt without the client's knowledge.

It was further argued that the conduct arose out of great anger upon learning that, at the time of the loan, the victim had even used the names of the client and the children to incur the debt.

After the dispute described above, the victim left home and contact was cut off, and the marital relationship between the two broke down beyond repair.

Accordingly, the two are currently separated and divorce litigation is underway, so it was argued that there is no risk of a recurrence of the kind of confrontation seen in this case.