Supreme Court building (Photo courtesy of Supreme Court of Korea)
The top court has ruled in favor of the foreign ministry's 2019 decision to dismiss former Ambassador to Vietnam Kim Do-hyon for receiving free hotel stays and other benefits from a company in the host country, the court said Wednesday.
The Supreme Court recently delivered the decision, reversing the Seoul High Court's previous ruling against the dismissal and sending the case back to the appellate court for retrial, the top court said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed Kim in June 2019, slightly more than a year after he was appointed the top envoy to Vietnam, for receiving free three-night stays at a hotel operated by a Vietnamese businessman.
Kim was also found to have arranged free hotel stays for former and incumbent executives of a company that he had worked for, and taken free flight tickets and pottery from an airline company although the gifts were later returned.
Kim has since filed an administrative suit seeking to reverse the dismissal.
A district court had initially ruled in favor of the dismissal decision.
But the Seoul High Court struck down the ruling, saying arranging contact between the Vietnamese firm and the Korean corporate executives falls within the scope of an ambassador's official duties.
The Supreme Court again reversed the appellate court ruling on the grounds that "The free stays Kim received cannot be deemed to be within the normal scope" of benefits allowed in an anti-graft act for public servants.
The top court also ruled that Kim's failure to report the presents he received constitutes a violation of the Public Service Ethics Act that requires public servants to file a report on presents they receive from foreigners or foreign organizations regardless of whether they were returned or not. (Yonhap)
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