Criminal Case Attorney | Client Charged with Unlawful Use of an Official Document Concluded with Non-Prosecution

This is the case of the client.

Although the client was not a person with a disability, the client obtained a parking placard for vehicles used by persons with disabilities, attached it to the vehicle, and parked in a parking space reserved for persons with disabilities, which is how the incident arose.

Someone who saw this reported it, and the matter came to light.

The client became subject to an investigation by an investigative agency on the charge of unlawfully using a parking placard for spaces reserved for persons with disabilities, which is an official document.

Unlawful use of an official document refers to the crime of improperly using a document of a public official or public office.

The unlawful use referred to here means any act of using an official document for a purpose other than its original purpose.

It also applies where a person without authority exercises it as if authorized, or where even a person with authority uses it contrary to its proper use.

Unlawful use of an official document is strictly prohibited under Article 230 of the Criminal Act in order to protect the authority of and trust in official documents.

A violation may be punished by imprisonment with or without labor for up to two years, or a fine of up to five million won.

Representative examples of unlawful use of an official document are as follows.

The criminal attorney in charge first explained the circumstances of the issuance in order to defend against punishment.

The client lives while caring for a father who has been assessed with a grade 3 brain lesion disability.

The client uses a vehicle for the purpose of taking the father to the hospital.

Recently, however, that vehicle was in an accident and was taken in for repairs.

The client then rented a replacement vehicle from the repair shop.

In this process, the parking placard for vehicles used by persons with disabilities that had been placed on the front of the client's own vehicle came to be placed on the front of the rental vehicle.

On the day of the incident, the client visited a supermarket to prepare dinner.

Just as the client had always done when visiting the supermarket with the father, the client unconsciously parked in the supermarket's space reserved for persons with disabilities, which led to the offense in this case.

The criminal attorney representing the client argued that the act of parking in the space reserved for persons with disabilities arose not from intent but from habitual conduct.

The client has been caring for a father assessed with a brain lesion disability for more than fifteen years.

Having used the vehicle while supporting the father for fifteen years, the client also parked in that space out of habit on the day of the incident.

The criminal case attorney argued that the client had not acted intentionally and requested leniency.