May 2, 2025
SEOUL – Controversy over whether Rep. Lee Jae-myung, the liberal Democratic Party of Korea’s presidential nominee, is eligible to run for president resurfaced Thursday, following a 10-2 ruling by the Supreme Court that found Lee guilty of making false claims in his previous run for president in 2022.
Thursday’s ruling, which remanded Lee’s case to the Seoul High Court, found him guilty, but it does not immediately strip Lee of his right to be elected president, because the Supreme Court’s decision did not finalize Lee’s sentence but put it in the hands of the Seoul High Court.
Also, the Supreme Court verdict did not specify whether Lee’s violations of the election law warranted a punishment amounting to a 1 million won ($700) fine.
Rather, it is expected to take some time for the Seoul High Court to hand down a ruling in Lee’s case, while the presidential election is just a month away.
Should Lee’s sentence be confirmed to be a fine of 1 million won or more before the June election, Lee will be immediately disqualified from running for president. The Seoul Central District Court’s ruling in November handed down a suspended one-year prison sentence for such false statements in public during his campaigning period in October 2021 and in December 2021.
If Lee is elected president before the Seoul High Court finalizes his conviction, confusion will arise due to a lack of legal clarity over whether Lee would gain immunity from any of the current criminal charges against him once elected.
Article 84 of the Constitution stipulates that a South Korean president “shall not be charged with a criminal offense during the tenure” except for insurrection or treason.
However, the Constitution does not clearly state whether a sitting president can be convicted of a crime if he or she was indicted before becoming president. Lee and his supporters have argued that a presidential candidate facing criminal charges should no longer be charged once elected.
With the ruling, Lee came under fire for pursuing a presidential bid despite the remaining possibility of him being stripped of his right to be elected.
Lee’s political rivals, who have lagged behind him in the polls, demanded that Lee quit the race.
Former Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo’s campaign team and former People Power Party Chair Han Dong-hoon both said that Thursday’s ruling was proof that justice was alive.
The Democratic Party’s senior spokesperson Rep. Jo Seoung-lae, however, said in a statement that the ruling was politically motivated and claimed that the Supreme Court had unjustly intervened in the presidential election.
The party also held an emergency meeting over the matter Thursday at 5 p.m. The party nominated Lee as its presidential candidate following Lee’s landslide victory in its primary on Sunday.
Another presidential hopeful, Rep. Lee Jun-seok of the New Reform Party, said the Democratic Party should redo its presidential nomination process, claiming that the party can still make a fresh nomination as candidate registration with the election authorities ends on May 11.
Lee has been ahead of all other presidential hopefuls in polls over the past few months, since former President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached in December. According to Realmeter on Monday, Lee’s popularity stood at 48.5 percent, ahead of conservative presidential hopefuls Kim Moon-soo (13.4 percent), Hong Joon-pyo (10.2 percent) and Han Dong-hoon (9.7 percent).