Mr. A had pressed a lawsuit against the Seoul Metropolitan Polic Agency, calling for his driver's license to be restored; police had cancelled his license because his car had been used to commit a crime. A Seoul court, however, ruled that the license cancellation was reasonable.

Last year in October, in order to rape a female colleague, he gave the woman a ride in his car and gave her coffee laced with sleeping pills. However, the crime didn't take place because A hesitated because of conscience and the woman stepped out of the car saying she had other plans to attend to. A few days later, the woman found out what happened and sued A. Prosecutors dropped the case, but police cancelled A's license.

A raised a suit and said, "The rape did not actually take place and I lost my job because of this incident. If my driver's license is canceled, I'll have problems getting another job. It will threaten my livelihood."

The justice in the case ruled, however, that, "The Road Traffic Act states that is a car is used to commit a crime, the license must be cancelled, so police did not abuse their discretionary power by canceling the license."

(Keum Won-seop, capedm@chosun.com )