01 March 2021 :

South Korean lawmakers on 26 February 2021 passed a bill at the plenary session of the National Assembly to revise a law dealing with penalties for child abuse, making it possible for child abusers to be convicted of murder even if they did not intend to cause death.
The amendment, called the Jeong-in Act, is named after a 16-month-old girl who died after allegedly being abused by her adoptive parents.
Under the revised law, those who abuse children and unintentionally cause death can face the death penalty or imprisonment for seven years to life.
As it stands now, if a child is killed during abuse, the perpetrator can be sentenced to five years to life.
The bill passed amid growing calls for tougher punishment after a number of high-profile cases where children died of abuse. The number of child abuse reports is increasing every year, having nearly tripled from 11,700 in 2015 to 30,000 in 2019.
But it was not approved unanimously. Among the 254 lawmakers who attended the plenary session, 252 voted in favor, one voted against and one abstained.
Rep. Kim Woong of the main opposition People Power Party, who voted against the bill, said, “Tragedies like Jeong-in’s case will not be solved simply by raising the sentence.” Criminals commit crimes even if they know the consequences, the former prosecutor argued.
Kim blamed Jeong-in’s death on negligence of duty and violations of regulations by the police, saying the so-called Jeong-in Act lacked any mechanism to address those problems.

19 October 2021 :

A former South Korean resident of Japan, who had been convicted as a North Korean spy and sentenced to death in 1983 in South Korea, was acquitted on 19 October 2021 of illegally collecting intelligence, people once close to the now deceased man said.
The Seoul High Court ruled that Son Yoo Hyung, who was detained in the South Korean capital in 1981 for allegedly working under agents from Pyongyang's ruling Workers Party of Korea, was not guilty.
Son had been imprisoned for 17 years in South Korea until 1998, when he was released on parole. He died at 84 in 2014, and his family sought the retrial of the case.
The same court had earlier determined in the retrial of Son's relatives and others, who were charged as his conspirators, that intelligence agents illegally detained Son for 45 days without a warrant, and thus records of his subsequent interrogations should not be admitted as evidence.
From the 1970s to the 1980s, similar false accusation cases occurred in South Korea, which was then under military dictatorship, and at least 36 South Korean residents of Japan and their relatives were convicted of spying. They were acquitted in retrials.
South Korean authorities at the time apparently sought to fuel perceptions of the North Korean threat in a bid to suppress people's demand for democratization by detaining South Koreans who had lived in Japan, which hosts supporters of both Koreas, and accusing them of being spies.
Son, a native of Jeju Island in southern part of today's South Korea, moved to Japan during World War II and lived in Osaka while being involved in movements advocating rights of Korean residents and the activities of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, known as Chongryon.
But after having a problem with the executives of Chongryon, Son acquired South Korean nationality and worked as a trader.