The court below sentenced the defendant not guilty on the ground that the crime of violating Article 70 subparagraph 10 of Article 70 and Article 41-6 of the Cultural Heritage Protection Act with respect to the cultural property of this case was not filed by the defendant from June 15, 1973 to July 15 of the year when the defendant acquired non-designated cultural property of this case within 30 days of the acquisition of the non-designated cultural property of this case. In this case, the court below sentenced the defendant not guilty on the ground that the public prosecution was instituted more than 3 years after the expiration of the statute of limitations.

However, according to Article 41-2 of the Protection of Cultural Properties Act, cultural heritage not designated as this case shall be registered with the Ministry of Culture in accordance with the Presidential Decree. Article 25(1) of the Enforcement Decree of the same Act, which is the Presidential Decree, provides that the owner (the possessor, if the owner does not exist or is unknown) shall file an application for registration of the general cultural heritage with the Minister of Culture and Art within 30 days from the date of its acquisition. Such imposition of the obligation to register with the owner or possessor shall be limited to ordinary cultural heritage, so long as it is not designated, the owner or possessor shall be recorded in the Ministry of Culture and Art. 41-6 of the same Act, and make it available for the preservation and utilization of the cultural heritage for the purpose of the Protection of Cultural Properties Act. Accordingly, in light of this, the above obligation to register is not extinguished by the expiration of 30 days of the Enforcement Decree, and it shall not be deemed that the ownership or possession of the ordinary cultural heritage continues, and therefore, it shall not be deemed that the obligation to register is within the prescribed period of suspension.

Therefore, the statute of limitations on the crime of violating the registration of this case shall not be deemed to take place from the expiration of the above period, but it shall be reasonable to calculate the period based on the time the registration obligation becomes extinct due to the performance of the above registration obligation and other circumstances.

Therefore, in this case, the judgment of the court below which did not consider the starting point of the statute of limitations as above is ultimately affected by the misunderstanding of legal principles as to the duty to register under Article 41-6 of the Cultural Heritage Protection Act and the starting point of the statute of limitations, which affected the conclusion of the judgment. Thus, the prosecutor's ground of appeal is accepted and the case is remanded to the court below. It

Justices Yu Tae-hun (Presiding Justice)