#i think soojin definitely could have pressed for the case to remain open and pursued further

[colognedecigarette]

ugh. okay. i've ranted about this in my journal less than five minutes ago but apparently my thirst to fucking yell at the clouds won't be satiated until i've put it somewhere public.

look. i love Seo Soojin and think her removal from the group was as unfair as the next stan, but the way people talk about the conclusion of the case really drives me mad. i see a lot of "she was proven innocent by her lawyer" and a lot more of "it was a false accusation" but going by the last statement from her attorney that i read, i feel like there's a lot more going on than that.

first thing's first, i don't know how it is in different countries or different justice system, but as far as am aware "proving" anything isn't a lawyer's job. first and foremost their job is to represent their client; specifically in cases such as Soojin's, it's to represent their client through a legal dispute/investigation. if there's anything related to "proofs" to their job, then that would be to collect evidences and statements. but to determine whether someone is innocent or guilty isn't within their rights.

her lawyer can't "prove" her innocence. all they could do was to collect and present the evidences that may -- hopefully -- get her an innocent verdict, but that verdict wasn't theirs to make.

now with that said, again, going by the last statement released that i read last year, i'd say Soojin's lawyer did a pretty good job collecting those evidences that may point towards her innocence. from what i remember:

they had statement(s) from the school staff as witness claiming that there were no records of the bullying Soojin was accused of;

the only record of bullying related to Soojin that they had instead pointed at her as the victim, not the bully; and

when questioned about it, the accuser/her team failed to present any evidence to support their claim of Soojin bullying her that wasn't simply hearsay (i.e. she said/she said situation)

also included in the statement though more like a quote, the accuser had also apparently admitted that "she wasn't sure (anymore)" whether Soojin really was part of the group that she'd claimed to have bullied her or not.

so all of these do point towards the conclusion that Soojin didn't do what the accuser said she did. at the very least, it opened the door for further investigation of the claim and, therefore, the case. at this point, based on the statement, Soojin's team had successfully submitted their own evidence to counter the accuser's claim to the police, while the accuser's team had not.

the proper course of action after this was supposed to be for the police to: 1) investigate the evidence submitted by Soojin/her team to determine its truth and 2) press the accuser/her team to finally submit their evidence to backup their claim as well as counter Soojin's. in my country, to my knowledge at least, if the accuser fails to fulfil point no.2 while point no.1 leads to a definitive yes, then the case would be dropped as false allegations and that opens the door for a counter-suit under defamation.

but, quoted in the statement, a member of the force instead claimed that there was not enough leads/evidence to investigate the case further. it was treated as though both parties failed to submit evidence to support their positions and claims, when as stated: Soojin did not fail, the accuser did.

it's hard not to look at all of this with at least a little bit of a side-eye. the case didn't seem like it was dropped because there was simply not enough going ons to continue pursuing it, it instead seemed like it was dropped because thus far at that point, Soojin may come out on top.

the case was not dropped because she was legally proven to be innocent, but because the evidence gathered favoured towards her innocence and the cops were not interested in pursuing that.

the more that i think about the inconclusive conclusion of the case, the more i can only think of one word. it's what people in my country call kongkalikong; the whole tail end of this case just stinks of corruption. this isn't "just" a false allegation. it feels far more insidious than that.

so ... no, Soojin's lawyers didn't "prove" that she was innocent, they just gathered and presented the evidence that could have cleared her of the accusations had the justice system worked properly. and, no, it wasn't a "false allegation" legally because the people who were supposed to investigate and determine that were not interested in doing their job.

in conclusion: the whole case is mad fucked. its ""conclusion"" even more so. if you're going to talk about it, don't just talk about the lawyers and the accuser. there's a whole third, maybe even fourth party, that you're forgetting to include.