The empty defendant's seat, a place for remaining responsibility. The court punished the co-conspirators, but the designer remains outside the courtroom. Hanmi Ilbo Graphics

The first-instance ruling on the Daejang-dong case shows what happens when the law speaks only half the truth. The court characterized this case as a series of corruption crimes conducted through prolonged provision of money and collusion. That judgment itself was clear. It acknowledged that the project structure was designed from the outset for the benefit of private entities and that the decision to grant only fixed profits and delete the excess profit recoupment clause by Seongnam Urban Development Corporation was an intentional one. In other words, the embezzlement in Daejang-dong was not an administrative error but the result of an intentional design.

However, the ruling stopped short of identifying the subject of that intention. The court stated that private developers needed firm assurances from Seongnam City's leadership to proceed with the project, but it did not reveal who that leadership was. Although the fact that direct reports were made to then-Mayor Lee Jae-myung appeared in various parts of the ruling, the law ignored the political weight of those reports. The law saw the structure but erased the names of the hands that created it.

The court found Yoo Dong-gyu and Kim Man-bae to be accomplices. It designated the insider with public decision-making power and the private profit-seeker as 'co-designers,' sentencing both to 8 years in prison. This means that those who used public power and those who bought that power were treated as having committed the same level of crime. However, the law on bribery is clear: the recipient of a bribe is more heavily culpable than the giver. Despite this, the court sealed the public official's betrayal and the private entity's greed as symmetrical crimes. This was a dangerous compromise by the judiciary, reducing the corruption of public authority to the same level as private greed.

The court stated that it could not clearly calculate the 400 billion won in damages presented by the prosecution, thus negating embezzlement under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes and only acknowledging embezzlement under the Criminal Act. This lowered the severity of punishment despite acknowledging intent and structure. By only accepting half of the truth, the law rendered itself powerless. While noting that there were assurances from the leadership, it limited the responsibility to Yoo Dong-gyu's practical actions, ultimately pushing the political decision-maker, who was at the center of this case, out of the spotlight of the judiciary.

Yoo Dong-gyu was not the mayor. He was the practical head of the corporation invested in by Seongnam City and an intermediate manager executing public decisions. Despite this, the court shifted all criminal responsibility for the Daejang-dong development, a pledge of the mayor, onto him. The court's silence reduced structural embezzlement within the public service to individual greed, and the blade of justice stopped at the shoulders of a subordinate official, not at the seat of power.

This ruling is by no means neutral. The court, in an attempt to balance both sides of political pressure, missed the core of the truth. While hinting at higher-ups with the phrase 'Seongnam City leadership,' it avoided naming them and, to fill that vacuum, linked Yoo Dong-gyu and Kim Man-bae as co-conspirators. This structure was not a victory for justice but a redistribution of responsibility. The politics of the judiciary, which sealed responsibility by creating accomplices, is the reality of this ruling.

The Daejang-dong case is not over. With this ruling, the court revealed the truth of the structure, but the truth of power still remains. If the intentional design was acknowledged, the approver of the design must also be revealed. If the law itself conceals half of the truth, it is politics, not justice. This is precisely why this ruling is cowardly. The law knew the truth, but it did not tell the whole truth until the end.

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