Photo : YONHAP News
The Supreme Court has upheld a suspended 18-month prison term for Democratic Party Rep. Yang Moon-seok, who has been convicted of fraud and lost his parliamentary seat.
The top court on Thursday finalized the lower court’s ruling against the ruling party lawmaker, who was convicted in 2021 of taking out a loan in his daughter’s name to purchase an apartment in the affluent Seocho District. Yang was handed an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for three years.
According to South Korean law, members of the National Assembly are stripped of their seats if handed a prison sentence, even a suspended one.
Yang and his wife, identified by her surname Seo, were indicted in 2024 and charged with taking out a loan of one-point-one billion won, or roughly 744-thousand U.S. dollars, from a credit union under the pretext of business operation funds for their child, who was a college student, and using it to purchase an apartment.
The Supreme Court’s decision came on the same day a revised law took effect, allowing complaints to be filed with the Constitutional Court over finalized rulings.
After the Supreme Court ruling, Yang said on Facebook that if the court appeared to have “overlooked the basic rights” of his family, he would consult his lawyers and seek “the judgment of the Constitutional Court.”