The Supreme Court ruled that simply posting a comment calling a particular person a "thug" on an internet portal site does not constitute the crime of insult under the Criminal Act.
The Supreme Court's Second Division (presiding Justice Kwon Young-jun) said on the 28th that it overturned a lower court ruling that fined a person surnamed Kim (51) 500,000 won for insult and sent the case back to the Jeju District Court for a not-guilty disposition.
On Feb. 5, 2022, about a month before the 20th presidential election, Kim posted a comment on a Naver article titled "Sinawi's Shin Dae-chul publicly endorses Lee Jae-myung… Aimed at Yoon: 'The ignorant don't know the details'" that read, "Does it become article-worthy that a thug supports a thug?"
The article relayed the impressions posted a day earlier on Facebook by Shin Dae-chul (59), leader and guitarist of the rock band Sinawi, after watching the joint debate of the three terrestrial broadcasters for the 2022 presidential candidates. Shin said he saw the comment in Aug. 2022 and filed a complaint against the poster, Kim.
In response, Kim argued during trial that "thug" is a standard word listed in the Korean dictionary, making it difficult to view as an insulting expression, and that the act of posting the comment falls within the protected scope of freedom of expression.
The Standard Korean Language Dictionary defines "thug" as a vulgar term for "beggar," or a vulgar term for a person whose conduct is crude and who habitually does bad deeds.
The first trial found the elements of insult were met and fined Kim 500,000 won. The first-trial panel said that "even if a word is a standard term listed in the Korean dictionary, it can carry a meaning that disparages the other party," adding, "Using a disparaging expression that is not directly related to the opinion one intends to express cannot be seen as protected by freedom of expression." The appeals court dismissed Kim's appeal, saying the lower court's ruling was justified.
In contrast, the Supreme Court said, "There were many comments on the article in this case, and many of them reacted negatively to the victim's expression of position," and added, "The comment in this case appears closer to a somewhat unrefined expression used to convey the defendant's negative and critical opinion or emotion about the victim's expression of position regarding a presidential candidate and about its being made into an article."
It continued, "Caution is needed before applying the yardstick of the crime of insult to even this level of expression and exercising the state's penal power." The political public forum nature of comment sections on news articles was also taken into account.