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(영문) 서울고등법원 2017.04.26 2016노3931

공직선거법위반등

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All appeals by the defendant and the prosecutor are dismissed.

Reasons

1. Summary of grounds for appeal;

A. Defendant (misunderstanding of facts and legal principles)’s transmission of text messages (hereinafter “instant text messages”) more than seven times through N (N) Co., Ltd. (N), a large amount of text messages, as indicated in the list of offenses, does not constitute an election campaign. It is merely an “act for the intra-party competition” or “act of preparation for election campaign”. Moreover, there was no perception that the Defendant sent the instant text messages by means of automatic broadcast communications.

Nevertheless, the lower court erred by misapprehending the facts or by misapprehending the legal doctrine, thereby violating the Public Official Election Act by transmitting the text message of this case by means of automatic broadcast communication in connection with the election campaign, and the Defendant was also aware that the Defendant was using the method of automatic broadcast communication.

The wrong determination was made.

B. Prosecutor 1) In misunderstanding of facts and misapprehension of legal principles, the Defendant’s expense spent by the Defendant to send the instant text messages constitutes election expenses. The Defendant intentionally omitted the election expense disbursement of KRW 77,748 in order to conceal the illegal election campaign by transmitting the instant text messages to the candidate’s accountant in charge in the election of a National Assembly member, in making an accounting report on election expenses as to the election expenses.

Nevertheless, the court below erred by misapprehending the legal principles, and thus, it cannot be deemed that the Defendant intentionally omitted the accounting report in order to conceal the election expenses disbursement of KRW 77,748,00. Therefore, it did not constitute a violation of the Political Fund Act due to the omission of the accounting report for election expenses

The wrong determination was made.

2) The sentence sentenced by the lower court to the Defendant (an amount of KRW 500,000) is too unhued and unreasonable.

2. Determination on the Defendant’s misunderstanding of facts and misapprehension of legal principles

A. The message of this case is transmitted.