By Selva Rani Thiyagarajan, LLB, Hons, Lond, CLP, UM
(NOTE: Filipino VIPs [fans of BIGBANG] saw him last January in “The Great Seungri Show” in Manila. Days after, they were diligently following headlines covering Seungri and a number of controversies he’s embroiled in.
The fiasco involving the Korean star began on January 28 when a CCTV footage was released to the public by South Korean media that captured a certain Kim Sang-Kyo being manhandled by security personnel at the Burning Sun club in Gangnam, allegedly owned by Seungri (aka Lee Seung-Hyun). This was followed by a media release of a chat group screenshot that discussed drugging, drunken women and sexual assaults being recorded by hidden cameras (molka), where allegedly Seungri is a part of.
Following this, a barrage of other allegations came implicating Seungri of drug abuse, impersonating a police officer, police bribery and collusion, prostitution mediation, and tax evasion and embezzlement of corporate funds and violating the Food Health Act.
In response, Seungri released a statement denying all the allegations, signified his willingness to “actively participate in the inquiries” by police authorities and apologized to the public. He also submitted petitions for a thorough investigation and to postpone his entry into military service.
To facilitate his defense and in cooperation with authorities, he cancelled all his concert dates and related activities and, ultimately, announced his retirement from the entertainment industry on March 11.
To date, after more than three months, 17 days and more than 50 hours of police interrogation, with some of the allegations already cleared (drug abuse, police impersonation and bribery as well as collusion), no warrant of arrest or any formal charges has been filed under his name.
While his legal culpabilities are still to be determined—if there’s any—Seungri’s reputation as an idol celebrity who’s popularly known worldwide had already been seriously undermined with every issue being stamped with his name and image.
This three-part commentary deals with the manner South Korean media and authorities, as well as netizens, played out in what could be the biggest K-pop scandal to date.
(The author is a law-degree holder and carries a certificate of legal practice based in Malaysia.)
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AS a woman, and as someone with a legal background, I take great pride in my career. I have not trampled on my rights as a woman to succeed in the profession. However, looking at Seungri’s trial by media, I believe he is not being given a right to defend himself from these allegations.
One of the first things I noticed is that there are certain words used to trigger an emotional response from the general audience. Words like prostitution, drugs and rape were associated to BigBang’s Seungri, as if he had committed those hideous crimes, even if there is no genuine evidence to prove those allegations thus far.
There is a legal element forgotten when connecting Seungri to these allegations – that is “causation link.” Causation has been defined as a causal relationship between the defendant’s conduct, and the end result.
Based on the facts involving the allegations against Seungri, no causation link has been established. Meaning, there is no connection with Seungri’s act to the end result; for example: the molka chat, the rape, the prostitution soliciting and the assault allegation.
Can guilt be determined from a rumor or an allegation? Can it be determined by a trial by media? Then what is the point of having a court of law, a judge, a prosecutor, or police authorities in a country? If only a media’s spin-off can deem someone guilty overnight?
Typically in a criminal case, a guilty verdict is handed down by a judge/jury in a trial after presenting all evidence and hearing all the witnesses in a court of law. All individuals’ rights to a fair trial is protected under Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is stated here as follows: “Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.”
Shouldn’t Seungri be given the same rights as everyone else? Why is his guilt determined by Korean Media?
Before a court of law can determine guilt, there are two mechanisms that need to be present: 1) Burden of Proof is the burden of proving a claim. In criminal cases, the burden of proving a defendant’s guilt is on the prosecution. They must establish that charge beyond reasonable doubt. 2) Beyond Reasonable Doubt pertains to the level of certainty and the degree of evidence necessary to establish proof in a criminal proceeding. This would be the yardstick applied on when showing the proof.
Now, beyond reasonable doubt sets a very high standard which would mean the prosecution would need to prove it. If we were to talk about in percentages, it should be close to 97 percent to 99 percent.
To simplify it, the group chat (depending on authenticity) would be at 10 percent to 30 percent, Seungri’s confession at 60 percent to 80 percent, witness accounts (credible or not) at 10 percent to 30 percent, and expert witness accounts at 40 percent to 50 percent.
All these pieces of evidence will be calculated, and this will determine if the case will be proven beyond reasonable doubt. The evidence—none thus far—will not be able to prove Seungri committed any of the offense.
We hope (our readers) can understand how important Seungri’s confession is. We should commend him for holding out this long in the interrogation. It would not have been an easy feat.
Other elements that need to be considered before a guilt of a person can be determined are authenticity and primary/secondary evidences.
Authentication of evidence
BUT first, for the general public, what is authenticity? Why are those pieces of evidence need to be authenticated?
On Black’s Legal dictionary website, authentic document has been defined as follows: “The validity of a document or record. The document is kept in its original form with no tampering.”
For an electronic evidence (chat group) to be accepted, it must be established that it is a document produced by a computer. There is also a need to show that the document was produced by a computer in the course of its ordinary use.
The reason for this is that digital documents are easy to be tampered with; therefore, the standard of proof is higher. Mere accusations from the media and netizens carry no weight in the authenticity of the said group chat.
Primary/secondary evidence
EVIDENCE can be categorized into primary and secondary evidence. The group chat, as primary evidence, cannot be authenticated because the original messages from 2015 to 2016 have been deleted from the server after every two to three days.
This was a decision made by the company in 2015 to protect the privacy of its users. Now, to confirm that the screen shots, or the files in spreadsheet format from a flash drive of the said group chat are authentic, they would need to find a secondary evidence, or indirect evidence to confirm the primary evidence.
The raid on the Arena Club, the investigation of people that are supposedly in the group chat, the search warrant and seize on Seungri is to find secondary evidence in his laptop, computer and electronic storage that would confirm the group chat.
Without the secondary evidence to confirm the primary evidence, it will be hard to prove allegations against Seungri.
Defamation
BY constantly publishing falsified news, the media has defamed Seungri. These news are then republished by international media as well. The effects of these publications have trampled over his legacy, reputation and future dreams.
At first, it may appear like the Korean media was able to publish any type of news without any repercussion. However, there is a Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, as criminal defamation—a right given under the South Korean Penal Code—is there to punish those who defame and allege false facts in public.
The criminal defamation will only be prosecuted upon a complaint made by Seungri. Articles 307-312 of the South Korea’s Penal Code describe various “crimes against reputation,” including defamation, defamation through printed materials and insult.
If found guilty, media outlets will be punished either by imprisonment, suspension of qualification, and fines. However, the Article does give a defense of justification for those who defame others; where they need to prove that the news articles are “true and solely for the public interest.” However, on the present facts, it will be difficult to prove the element of truth in the news that was published.
It will help to understand some of the principles in evidence law as well. Guilt cannot be determined by media, as there are so many other elements involved. So, please don’t be quick to judge Seungri, as Korean media is definitely not the new judge of South Korea.
Image credits: Kimberly Lumague
12 comments
Very interesting article, thank you for writing it. I don’t know much about Korean law or what is going on in the case so I have stayed out of it but it has been alarming and disturbing how fast some people jumped to conclusions and spread rumors, and I was pretty shocked and disgusted by people calling for capital punishment.
Seungri’s career is probably over, whether he is innocent or guilty. If he’s innocent I have all the pity in the world for him but we’ll have to wait and see.
Agree, but seungri reputation already destroy 100%. Nothing can be done to undo this damage. Well done korea reporter, you has successfully destroy seungri and Big Bang.
It doesn’t seem to me that you know much about the case.
As a VIP, I have always asked for one thing, do not judge him without evidence, if he committed a crime he will have to pay for it but let’s wait for a judge to judge him, not the press. Estaremos con Seungri hasta el final…
I worked 17+yrs in a criminal capital case calendar. Everything from B&E to DEATH PENALTY.
Truly this has been a witch-hunt by netziens.
The police questioning like the Spanish Inquisition.
Questioning Seungri for over 12+hrs at a time.
Questioning Seungri a total of 50+hrs.
The so called “Press” wrote innuendo n hearsay.
The police leaking information that helped feed this craziness.
The “Press” Copy n pasted what they thought would feed this craziness with no proof.
If the police n prosecution brought that infront of a Judge for a warrant. They would of been DENIED.
All the allegations no basis.
Since the media n certain netziens persisted with all these I hope Seungri n his legal team sue them.
Seungri has n to this day stated he is innocent.
In SK it is “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” or it was?
Sorry but being a part of a chatroom where rape is discussed openly as though it were a joke and watching uploaded videos of women “friends” are having sex with and not reporting it to the police because they are your friends or because you feel it is acceptable, just standing by and saying nothing makes one an ally to a crime. Is rape a joke? Is it illegal? The authorities should have been notified right away. The chat group members reluctantly confess their choicescand actions because they were finally reported and got caught.
Sorry, but your info are wrong, he wasn’t on that chat room, he was on another one “business chat room” and the people on molka chatroom are righ now on the trail for their crimes, but not Seungri since he wasn’t on it, media just used his name in all articles till it mislead people.
Same words you must say to the reporter kang for holding the evidence for 2 years and sharing with her collegues that 2 years can save women but instead she wait till the bs case to manipulate and fake the chats who the owner is jjy but she name seungri chat where the fact and evidence says 20+ chats and seungri was not in molka chat but business chat
You Really did a great job by writing this article!
This really well written and clear. Everyone wants justice in whatever situation. But it is important that we don’t listen or encourage gossip and speculation without evidence that has been officially acknowledge. We would not like it if we were judged by judges if they only listened to what others think who have never met us.
Defend a sh!tbag criminal who has a history of sexist and shady behaviors over actual victims of crimes, so it’s true that some sociopathic “lawyers” don’t have any human integrity and empathy to write this diatribe.
Did you even read the actual news or the clickbaits titles of trashy media?