The judgment of the court below is reversed.

A defendant shall be punished by imprisonment with prison labor for up to six months.

1. Summary of grounds for appeal;

A. The punishment of the lower court (six months of imprisonment) is too unreasonable.

B. There was no opportunity to attend the original judgment, even though the existence of the grounds for the request for retrial was unaware of the fact in the original judgment.

2. Determination as to the existence of grounds for request for retrial

A. In a case where the accused of the relevant legal doctrine is found guilty of having been absent pursuant to the main sentence of Article 23 of the Act on Special Cases concerning the Promotion, etc. of Legal Proceedings (hereinafter “Litigation Promotion”), and the accused is not able to attend a trial due to a cause not attributable to him/her, he/she may request a review of the conviction pursuant to Article 23-2(1) of the Litigation Promotion Act.

As to the judgment of the first instance court rendered guilty without the defendant's statement pursuant to Article 23 of the Litigation Promotion Act, in cases where the defendant claimed for recovery of the right to appeal and accepted it on the grounds that the defendant or his/her representative could not file an appeal within the period for filing an appeal for reasons not attributable to him/her pursuant to Article 23-2 (1) of the Litigation Promotion Act, if such grounds include circumstances in which the defendant could not be present in the trial due to reasons not attributable to him/her, it is reasonable to view that the above provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act indicate that there exists a reason for requesting a retrial, and that the grounds for appeal corresponding to "when a ground for requesting a retrial exists" under Article 361-5 (13) of the Criminal Procedure Act are asserted.

Therefore, the appellate court should examine whether there are grounds for the request for a retrial under the above retrial provision.

If it is recognized, the judgment of the first instance court should be reversed, and the new judgment shall be rendered in accordance with the result of the new trial, including the service of a duplicate of indictment, etc. (see Supreme Court Decision 2015Do8243, Nov. 26, 2015). (b) According to the records of the judgment, the court of original instance has several copies of indictments against the defendant.