Appeals Court to Rule on Yoon Suk Yeol’s Free Opinion Poll Case
The Seoul High Court is due to rule on former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s appeal after a lower court sentenced him to two years in prison for receiving opinion polls as illegal political donations before the 2022 election.
The Seoul High Court is scheduled to deliver an appellate ruling Wednesday in former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s political funding case, one of several criminal proceedings facing the ousted leader.
The case centers on opinion polling services provided before the 2022 presidential election. Prosecutors accused Yoon of acting with his wife, Kim Keon Hee, to receive 58 polls free of charge from Myung Tae-kyun, a self-described political power broker. The polls were valued at about 270 million won, or roughly $202,000, and were supplied between April 2021 and March 2022.
A lower court sentenced Yoon to two years in prison after finding that 14 of the polls amounted to illegal political donations under the Political Funds Act. The court did not convict him over the remaining 44 polls, concluding that those services could not be regarded as having been provided with the couple’s consent.
The special counsel team led by Min Joong-ki has asked the appellate court to impose a four-year prison term. The Seoul High Court is expected to announce its decision at 2 p.m. in Seoul. The ruling could either uphold the lower court’s findings, alter the scope of the conviction or change the sentence, subject to any further appeal.
Kim was acquitted of the same allegations in separate proceedings at both the trial and appellate levels. Her case is awaiting a final decision from the Supreme Court. The differing outcomes have placed added attention on how the courts assess the evidence concerning the couple’s knowledge of and consent to the polling services.
The appeal is legally and politically significant because it concerns whether valuable campaign-related services can be treated as prohibited donations even when no cash changes hands. It also adds to the broader judicial scrutiny surrounding Yoon after his removal from office.
Yoon is facing multiple criminal trials following his unsuccessful declaration of martial law in 2024 and his subsequent ouster. Wednesday’s decision addresses only the opinion-poll allegations and is separate from those other proceedings. Its immediate significance will turn on the appeals court’s assessment of which polls qualified as donations and whether the lower court’s two-year sentence was proportionate.