https://v.kakao.com/v/20210619103232390
Jailed for a false neighbor's accusation of sexual assault.. Court: 'No state compensation'
(Seoul=Yonhap News) reporter Park Hyung-bin = A man in his 60s who served 10 months of unfair prison time after being falsely labeled a sex offender filed a damages suit against the state, arguing the investigation and trial were unjust, but lost the case. On the 19th, the legal community...
v.kakao.com
Well, the rationale for the ruling looks very long and complicated... but to put it into my very personal opinion, phrased similarly to the ruling itself..
In the end, you can sense an intent not to create an uncomfortable precedent - one that could trigger over-generalization - over an investigation that, within what's been revealed so far, turned out to be an unusually inadequate (in hindsight) and thoroughly regrettable result..
In truth, because sexual crimes are the category they are, the investigation itself must have been extremely difficult and sensitive..
The media at the time surely contributed, too, but in particular I don't think the sense of justice of the investigators in charge - some of whom would have been parents themselves or had prior similar cases - was lacking. But, acknowledging that I'm the kind of person whose only sense of "the field" comes from watching dramas and movies as entertainment, and that what follows is a very hasty and results-oriented take, I can't help a small regret (or maybe a small fear) that, with the "one in countless" possibility that I could be next, I wish the presumption of innocence had been respected just a bit more..
What I want to make clear, though, is that this regret is not about pointing to a failure, sloppiness, or "circling the wagons" in the investigation.
Perhaps because this was a case where the truth was proven relatively quickly compared with before-and-after rulings... the regret here isn't really a judgment about the previous investigation being lacking - it points more toward the heartache the investigators themselves must have felt.
Honestly, on reading this article... I felt pity toward the Supreme Court and the investigation agencies rather than anger.
The daily lives we can only glimpse through dramas or movies must differ from the daily life of "us" ordinary people in ways I can't begin to imagine.. Every day runs without a script or a stunt double - probably a grim thriller, or a bloody action flick...
And whatever their motive, I feel nothing but gratitude for those who willingly took these roles - people for whom a sense of justice has become their very reason for existing.
Knowing that even wishing for their wellbeing is, in the end, a selfish wish for my own peace, and knowing very well that it's thanks to them that I'm living this "ordinary" life, who am I to judge right and wrong - but I do have a small wish that the work defined as their justice not be eroded by our disgust.
Either way, I send my sincere condolences to both sides..
In particular, to the daughter - Mr. A's daughter, who even in that situation trusted her family and fought all the way to prove justice on her own - I'd like to say: truly well done.
And as a kind of consolation for the loathsome everyday feelings that investigators face,
I hope the feelings the daughter carries today about her plea ultimately become pride in herself and faith in her family.
As a side note, I imagine what it would be like if this were made into a film.
Not as a binary good-vs-evil, corruption-vs-truth story, but composed around how differently people feel - given the lives they've walked through - about the same situation, the social roles they take up in response, and their individual efforts and real-world limits to break the deadlock. It became a wound for everyone involved... but thankfully, this is a case where the truth was - relatively - uncovered.
