The punishment sentenced by the court below (1.5 million won) is too unreasonable.

Judgment

The crime of forging a document on the assertion of misapprehension of the legal doctrine is established as a crime of forging a document, since the public credibility of the document is the legal interest of protecting it, if the document prepared for the purpose of uttering has the form and appearance to the extent that it can be believed to be a document prepared within the authority of a person under the name of the person concerned, and as long as the document satisfies the above requirements, even if the title holder had already died before the date of preparation of the document, such document is also likely to impair the public trust. Thus, the crime of forging a document is established.

When considering the fact that it is necessary to protect the public credibility of the document in the name of the deceased person as above, the document’s name is still alive even if the document’s name has already died, and if the document was prepared on the premise of the fact, there was a risk of undermining the public confidence in the document. Therefore, the establishment of the crime of forging private document may not be denied on the ground that the consent of the nominal owner of the document is presumed to have been obtained (Supreme Court Decision 2011Do6223 Decided September 29, 201). In this case, even if C dies on September 3, 2014 and the defendant succeeds to his status, barring any special circumstance, the defendant prepared an application for permission of extension as if the document’s name is alive, and thus, there was a risk of undermining the public trust in the document’s name.