A South Korean high court announced Monday that it will postpone a key hearing in presidential frontrunner Lee Jae-myung’s subornation of perjury case until after the June 3 presidential election, according to Yonhap News Agency.
The Seoul High Court was scheduled to begin the trial on May 20, but rescheduled the date after Lee formally registered as a candidate over the weekend. The court had also initially planned to hold the final hearing on election day itself. This move comes on the heels of two similar decisions last week, when courts delayed hearings in other cases involving Lee until after the vote.
Lee, who leads the opposition Democratic Party (DP), was previously acquitted in November 2023 of instructing a secretary to the former mayor of Seongnam to deliver false testimony during a 2019 trial related to election law violations. Prosecutors have appealed the verdict, leading to this retrial.
Separately, hearings in Lee’s corruption trial linked to real estate development projects in Seongnam have also been postponed until late June. The DP, which holds a parliamentary majority, has called for all legal proceedings against Lee to be suspended until after the election. Lee remains the leading candidate in opinion polls heading into the June 3 vote.
