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(영문) 대법원 2015.08.27 2015도8397

공직선거법위반등

Text

All appeals are dismissed.

Reasons

The grounds of appeal are examined.

1. Cruing suspicions as to Defendant A’s grounds of appeal on the corruption, etc. of candidates for public service should be permitted only when it is for verifying eligibility for public service and such suspicion is not permissible without limitation, and where there are reasonable grounds to believe that it is true.

In addition, in the crime of publishing false facts, a person who actively asserts that there is no suspicion against a person who asserts that there is no suspicion against him/her, bears the burden of presenting supporting materials that can be acceptable to the existence of such a fact, and the prosecutor may prove the falsity by impeachmenting the credibility of the materials presented.

In this case, it is not sufficient to simply present a written answer in light of the above legal principles. At least, the prosecutor's act of proving falseness shall be equipped with the existence of the body to the extent that it is practically possible, and when the presentation of such a written explanation is not made or the credibility of the presented explanation is impeachment, the prosecutor shall be held liable

Meanwhile, in the crime of publishing false facts under Article 250(2) of the Public Official Election Act, it is necessary to recognize that such subjective perception is false as the content of an actor’s intentional act. As long as it is difficult to know or prove it out of the outside due to its nature, the existence or absence of such subjective perception ought to be determined on a normative basis by comprehensively taking into account all the circumstances, such as the Defendant’s educational background, career, social status, circumstances surrounding the publication, time of the publication, and the objectively anticipated ripple effect therefrom, based on the contents of the publication, identity and content of the publication, the existence and content of the explanation, the source of the fact expressed by the Defendant, and the circumstances leading up to recognition, etc.