Supreme Court Remands Defamation Correction Lawsuit by Former Chief Prosecutor Joo Jin-woo Against Newstapa
Former Deputy Chief Prosecutor Joo Jin-woo's defamation lawsuit against the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (Newstapa), which reported allegations that he colluded with a former prosecutor-turned-lawyer while working at the Blue House's Office of Civil Affairs, will be retried in the appellate court.
The Supreme Court's Second Division (Presiding Justice Min Yoo-sook) on the 13th overturned part of the second trial's ruling, which had ruled against Newstapa in the defamation lawsuit filed by former Deputy Chief Prosecutor Joo, and remanded the case back to the Seoul High Court.
In September 2019, Newstapa raised suspicions that the prosecution had overlooked financial crime charges against former prosecutor-turned-lawyer Park Soo-jong, presenting Park's call records as evidence. The list, which Newstapa claimed to have obtained, reportedly showed that Park had phone calls with 22 active prosecutors. Among these, it was reported that Park had 65 phone calls and exchanged 13 text messages with former Deputy Chief Prosecutor Joo between 2015 and 2016. At that time, Joo was working as an administrative officer in the Blue House's Office of Civil Affairs. In response to this report, Joo filed a defamation lawsuit against Newstapa in October 2019.
The first trial court ruled in favor of Newstapa, stating that Joo had refused to exercise his right to rebuttal and had failed to clearly explain the allegations raised by Newstapa. However, the second trial court ruled partially in favor of Joo, stating that there was no credible evidence to support Newstapa's report.
The Supreme Court found the second trial's judgment to be incorrect. It stated, "(In Newstapa's report) the introduction section presupposes that the article's content is inferred from the obtained call records and could be seen as a subjective evaluation of objective facts or an expression of opinion criticizing former Deputy Chief Prosecutor Joo."
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Furthermore, the court pointed out, "Under the Media Arbitration Act, the person requesting a correction bears the burden of proving that the report is untrue, but former Deputy Chief Prosecutor Joo did not submit any evidence that could impeach the credibility of the evidence presented by Newstapa."
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