Court Rules "Dismissal of MBC Cameraman Who Created Journalist Blacklist Is Invalid"

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] An MBC camera reporter who was dismissed for allegedly creating a so-called 'blacklist' targeting fellow employees won an appeal in a lawsuit against the company seeking nullification of the dismissal.

According to the legal community on the 6th, the Seoul High Court Civil Division 1 (Presiding Judges Yoon Seung-eun, Lee Yesul, Song O-seop) ruled in the case filed by camera reporter A against MBC, stating, "MBC's dismissal is null and void, and the wages that would have been received if not dismissed must be paid."

The National Union of Mediaworkers MBC Headquarters (hereinafter MBC Union) held a press conference in August 2017, claiming that "the company created a 'blacklist' of reporters and used it for personnel decisions." A was identified as one of the authors of the blacklist document and was dismissed in May of the following year.

The documents written by A included the 'Camera Reporter Tendency Analysis Table,' which classified fellow camera reporters into four grades based on loyalty to the company and participation in the labor union, as well as 'Tendencies of Persons of Interest.'

A filed a lawsuit contesting the dismissal, and the first trial court ruled in favor of MBC, stating that the part about reporting personnel movements was not sufficiently verified in terms of facts.

However, the appellate court judged that the part claiming A shared the documents with others to commit illegal acts was also not a valid disciplinary reason, and ruled the dismissal invalid. The appellate court explained, "A only shared the document contents with two senior camera reporters who, like A, had tendencies opposing the MBC union, and did not leak the documents otherwise," adding, "It is difficult to conclude that the document contents were spread to an unspecified large number of people."

The court stated, "It is difficult to conclude that the degree of misconduct was severe enough to make it impossible to continue the employment relationship based solely on the disciplinary reason of disrupting service order by creating the documents," and explained, "The dismissal is invalid as it constitutes an abuse and deviation of disciplinary discretion."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.