Mokpo Attorney Referral Case | The Client Who Was Referred to a Mokpo Attorney: A No-Referral Decision in a Wrongful Stalking Case

The client, who came on a referral for a Mokpo attorney, was facing a police investigation for violation of the Act on Punishment of Crime of Stalking.

🔗The Act on Punishment of Crime of Stalking is a law enacted to provide immediate and preventive measures against the crime of stalking.

The stalking conduct punishable under the Act on Punishment of Crime of Stalking is not limited to actually approaching or following someone, but includes all of the following: waiting for or watching a person, and causing news, objects, or writings to reach a person through a third party.

Whether the party’s conduct caused anxiety or fear becomes an important issue.

The Supreme Court has held that whether the conduct is sufficient, objectively and generally, to cause anxiety or fear in the other party must be judged objectively by comprehensively considering the various circumstances before and after the conduct, including the relationship, status, and disposition of the actor and the other party, the background leading to the conduct, the manner of the conduct, the words and actions of the actor and the other party, and the surrounding circumstances. (See Supreme Court Decision 2023Do6411.)

The Court holds that when such stalking conduct continues or is repeated, the “crime of stalking” is established.

The client, who came on a referral for a Mokpo attorney, was in a bewildering situation in which the client could not even understand whether the client was facing stalking allegations.

After having a meal at a restaurant the client frequented, the client spent personal time and rested in the client’s parked vehicle.

The client found enjoyment in taking a brief rest in the client’s own space, doing things such as playing games inside the car, a space the client could not find at home with the client’s wife and child.

After work, the client merely went, as a routine, to a quiet place where the client could spend time alone, parked there, and passed the time playing games. The client had never engaged in any stalking conduct directed at anyone.

The attorney argued that, in order for the crime of stalking to be established, the stalking conduct must be carried out persistently or repeatedly, yet there was no person who could be regarded as the target of the offense, which is a prerequisite fact for defining conduct as stalking.

Where there is fundamentally no victim who is the object of stalking, the crime of stalking naturally cannot be established.

The attorney argued that, because the client's conduct did not constitute the crime of stalking as defined under the Act on Punishment of Crime of Stalking, there was ultimately no victim that the Act sought to protect either, and therefore the client could not be punished.