[아시아경제 김대현 기자] The Supreme Court ruled that even doctors who performed an abortion before the Constitutional Court decided that the abortion guilty was inconsistent with the constitution should not be punished. This is the first time that the Supreme Court has finally confirmed innocence for abortion on the basis of the constitutional decision.
On the 12th, the second division of the Supreme Court (Presiding Judge Noh Jeong-hee) broke the court case and found innocence in the appeal of the obstetrician A, who was handed over to the trial on the charges of abortion. The ruling of the first and second trials that delayed the sentence for Mr. A was canceled.
In 2013, Mr. A was charged with having an abortion at the request of a pregnant woman in the fifth week of pregnancy.
1 sentenced Mr. A to six months in prison and one year in suspension. Deferral of sentence is a system in which the sentence of a sentence is delayed for a certain period of time for a defendant who is lightly committed, and no punishment is given if the period is exceeded without a specific accident.
Mr. A appealed to the effect that there was no illegality itself, but in 2017 the second trial maintained the judgment of the lower court and dismissed the appeal.
This situation changed in April 2019 when the Constitution made a constitutional nonconformity decision on the provisions for abortion. At the time, the constitution ordered to revise the provisions of the criminal law punishing abortion by the end of 2020, but the provision automatically ceased from January 1, as the National Assembly did not submit the amendment.
The Supreme Court convicted Mr. A innocent. The court said, “If a decision is made to be unconstitutional in accordance with the main sentence of Article 47 (3) of the Constitutional Act, the provision will be retroactively invalidated. “You have to be acquitted of it.”
He added, “Because the fact of the prosecution in this case is not a crime, the first trial verdict convicted of Mr. A is illegal.”
Reporter Kim Dae-hyun [email protected]