Constitutional Court Confirms Unconstitutionality of Park Geun-hye Government's 'Blacklist' Creation and Support Exclusion in the Cultural and Arts Sector

Constitutional Court Grand Bench. [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] The Constitutional Court has ruled that the so-called ‘cultural and artistic blacklist’ created by the Park Geun-hye administration, which involved compiling lists of cultural and artistic figures with specific political leanings and excluding them from government support, is an unconstitutional exercise of public authority.

On the 23rd, the Constitutional Court unanimously confirmed the unconstitutionality in a constitutional complaint case filed by artistic director Lee Yoon-taek, Yeonhidan Georipa, the Seoul Theater Association, and others who were placed on the blacklist during the Park Geun-hye administration. They claimed that the creation and execution of the cultural and artistic blacklist, which excluded them from support, violated their rights to personal data self-determination, freedom of political expression and artistic freedom, and equality rights, targeting former President Park Geun-hye and former Chief Secretary Kim Ki-chun.

The Court stated, "Restrictions based on specific views or ideologies constitute the most serious and harmful limitation on freedom of expression," adding, "This goes against the fundamental principles of the Constitution, including popular sovereignty and the liberal democratic basic order."

The ‘cultural and artistic blacklist’ incident involved the Park Geun-hye administration collecting and holding information on cultural and artistic figures’ political leanings, such as their participation in declarations supporting specific politicians or calls to repeal the Sewol ferry enforcement ordinance, and using this information to exclude them from cultural and artistic support projects.

These suspicions were concretely confirmed through the indictment documents filed by Special Prosecutor Park Young-soo, who investigated the state affairs manipulation case and indicted former Chief Secretary Kim and others.

After former President Park’s election, former Chief Secretary Kim ordered measures to disadvantage cultural and artistic figures who had political leanings opposing the administration or had expressed such political views. At that time, the Senior Secretary for Political Affairs and others built and managed a database for exclusion from support and delivered the ‘blacklist’ to officials at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

In response, the artistic figures who were placed on the blacklist, including Director Lee, filed a constitutional complaint in April 2017, stating, "Excluding individuals from government support because they declared support for opposition parties or created works on specific issues such as the ‘Sewol ferry disaster’ infringes on freedom of expression and artistic freedom."

On this day, the Constitutional Court pointed out that the state’s collection, possession, and use of information about an individual’s political views constitutes a ‘significant restriction’ on the right to self-determination regarding personal information, and that the blacklist was created without any legal basis despite the need for such.

Furthermore, since the information collection was intended as an unconstitutional directive to block support for artists critical of the government, it was judged to be an exercise of public authority that cannot be constitutionally permitted.

The Court also ruled that excluding specific artists from government support projects based on political views was ‘arbitrary discrimination’ and violated the right to equality.

A Constitutional Court official stated, "Both the information collection and the directive to exclude from support should be canceled, but since all have ended, the unconstitutionality confirmation was made as a declarative measure to prevent similar repeated infringements of fundamental rights," highlighting the significance of this decision.

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