'Moon Jae-in Defamation' Shin Yeon-hee... Supreme Court: "Legal Misinterpretation, Retrial Required"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] Former Seoul Gangnam District Mayor Shin Yeon-hee, who was indicted for spreading false information about President Moon Jae-in, will face trial again.

On the 21st, the Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Cho Jae-yeon) overturned the lower court's ruling that sentenced former Mayor Shin to a fine of 10 million won in the appeal trial for charges including violation of the Public Official Election Act, and remanded the case to the Seoul High Court. The reason was that the defamation part, which the lower court judged as guilty, is not an election crime or a crime in a conceptual concurrence with an election crime, so the sentence should be separately pronounced from the "remaining election crimes and parts treated as election crimes in conceptual concurrence with election crimes."

Former Mayor Shin was brought to trial on charges of spreading false posts defaming then-presidential candidate Moon Jae-in about 200 times via KakaoTalk from December 2016 to March 2017 with the intent to defeat Moon in the presidential election.

Earlier, the first trial court judged that the parts stating false facts such as Moon, who served as Chief of Staff to former President Roh Moo-hyun, supported pro-government media with large-scale funds and created presidential slush funds, constituted violations of the Public Official Election Act and defamation. The court recognized former Mayor Shin's guilt, sentencing him to a fine of 8 million won, stating, "By violating the political neutrality obligation of public officials, distorting public opinion, undermining the transparency of the election, and lowering the victim's social evaluation, the nature of the crime is not light."

However, the court judged that expressions referring to Moon as "Yangsan's Red" and "communist" were subjective evaluations rather than false "facts." Although sending the message "communist" was intended to influence the election, it was interpreted as not constituting defamation due to spreading false information.

The appellate court viewed that messages sent by former Mayor Shin before the registration of preliminary candidates for the 19th presidential election primary also had the intent to influence the election. Accordingly, it imposed a fine of 10 million won, higher than the first trial. The court stated, "Even if the messages were sent only via one-on-one chat, since they were sent to multiple people, publicity is recognized in itself. Considering the possibility of transmission, the defendant should be regarded as having recognized and tolerated the risk that the messages could be spread to unspecified or multiple people at the time of sending."

However, on this day, the Supreme Court ruled that the trial against former Mayor Shin must be conducted again. The court stated, "The lower court applied Article 38 of the Criminal Act to these crimes and imposed a single sentence," adding, "This is a legal error that misinterpreted the legal principle of Article 18, Paragraph 3 of the Public Official Election Act and affected the judgment."

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