Cho Ju-bin, serving 47-year sentence, loses appeal over prison CCTV surveillance

Cho Ju-bin, convicted of producing and distributing sexual exploitation material — including content involving minors — through the Telegram-based "Baksa Room" network, has lost his appeal in a lawsuit challenging CCTV surveillance inside his prison cell.

During the proceedings, Cho said there was "no reason whatsoever" to designate him as a subject of electronic video monitoring and called the measure unlawful, but courts rejected his argument. The court said the surveillance was a lawful precautionary measure, given that Cho had received a heavy sentence and faced widespread public condemnation.

According to legal sources, the Daegu High Court's First Administrative Division, presided over by Judge Son Byeong-won, upheld the lower court's dismissal and rejected Cho's appeal in his suit against the warden of North Gyeongsang Province's No. 1 Northern Correctional Institution — formerly Cheongsong Prison — seeking to nullify the CCTV monitoring and recording order. Cho was also ordered to bear the litigation costs.

Cho, incarcerated at North Gyeongsang Province's No. 1 Northern Correctional Institution, filed the lawsuit against the prison warden in September last year. The prison had placed him in a cell equipped with electronic video monitoring equipment for three months beginning in July last year. Under the Act on the Execution of Sentences, inmates deemed at significant risk of taking their own life may be designated for electronic video surveillance.

Cho said during the trial that the measure was carried out "without specific grounds and in violation of due process, despite the fact that I had not engaged in any behavior foreshadowing a specific risk" such as self-harm.

He asked the court to declare the CCTV monitoring and recording order null and void, and separately sought to have the order overturned.

The first court dismissed Cho's claims in January. A dismissal on procedural grounds — known in Korean law as "gakha" — means the court declines to rule on the merits because the case fails to meet formal requirements. Cho was also ordered to pay litigation costs.

The court explained that the three-month monitoring period had already ended and the order had been lifted, meaning all public-law restrictions imposed on Cho had lapsed. It added that there were no special circumstances — such as a risk of future adverse action based on the prior order — that would give Cho a legal interest in seeking its nullification or cancellation, rendering the claims inadmissible.

Cho appealed the dismissal, again seeking a declaration that the CCTV monitoring and recording order was null and void. The appeals court, however, found no basis to accept his argument.

The appeals court acknowledged that Cho could face the same measure again during his remaining sentence and that there was therefore a legal interest in examining the order's validity, taking up the procedural and substantive questions he raised.

Nonetheless, the outcome was the same: Cho lost.

The court noted that Cho's trial and conviction had been widely covered by media and drew intense public criticism. It also pointed to an incident in March 2020, when Cho was held at a Jongno Police Station detention cell and struck his head against a wall out of remorse, sustaining a roughly 2-centimeter abrasion that required stitching at a hospital. The following day, at the same facility, he fell backward and injured his neck, requiring a cast.

Taking into account the severity of his sentence and the self-harm incidents at the detention facility, the court said it was reasonable for the prison to have concluded that Cho posed a risk of taking his own life due to extreme psychological pressure and despair about his future. "Such a judgment was justified," the court said.

The court further said the measure was legitimate as it was intended to protect the inmate's life and physical safety, and that visual monitoring by guards alone left gaps in preventing incidents inside cells. Installing electronic video equipment to keep inmates under constant observation was an appropriate means of filling those gaps, the court said.

The court concluded that there was no indication Cho's human rights had been violated in the process, and that the measure did not appear so lacking in reasonableness or so excessive as to constitute an abuse of discretion. "It is therefore justified," the court said.

The ruling has not yet been finalized. Cho has appealed to the Supreme Court, where the case will now be reviewed.

In connection with the Baksa Room case, Cho was sentenced in 2021 to 42 years in prison after being convicted of organizing a criminal enterprise and violating laws protecting children and youth from sexual exploitation, among other charges. He was found to have coerced women into producing sexual exploitation videos between May 2019 and February 2020 and distributed them via Telegram. Prosecutors designated the Baksa Room as a criminal organization and applied additional charges of organizing and operating such a group against Cho and key members. Cho was also indicted on separate charges of sexual assault, and an additional four-month sentence was finalized in February 2024.

In a separate case involving charges of sexually assaulting a minor, the Supreme Court finalized a five-year sentence in December last year. Cho's total confirmed prison term now stands at 47 years and four months.