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1. Of the judgment of the court of first instance, the part against the plaintiff corresponding to the amount ordered to be paid below is revoked.
Reasons
Basic Facts
The Plaintiff is a person who was working as the representative of the former D Political Party (the Constitutional Court Order 2013Hun-Ma1 Decided December 19, 2014). Defendant B is the representative of “G” as a non-governmental organization, and Defendant C is the representative of “H” as a non-governmental organization.
The Defendants received a written accusation on March 12, 2013 from the Seoul Central District Public Prosecutor’s Office (hereinafter “instant document”) and distributed it to a large number of media companies on March 9, 2013.
[Grounds for recognition] A’s assertion of tort caused by defamation and insult of the purport of the entire pleadings by the Plaintiff’s assertion that the Defendants asserted that the Plaintiff had committed an act of undermining the Plaintiff’s social evaluation by using a personal attack expression, such as the Plaintiff’s activity to help North Korea as a pro-North Korean force, etc., in the instant documents.
Therefore, the Defendants jointly have the obligation to pay damages for defamation and insult to the Plaintiff.
Defamation, which is a tort under the Civil Act, refers to an act of infringing upon an objective evaluation received from society on a human value, such as a person's character, virtue, reputation, and credit.
However, a simple statement of opinion alone does not obstruct the other party's social evaluation. Thus, if the expression of opinion or comment is pure opinion or comment that is not premised on a statement of fact, the liability for damages caused by defamation is not established. On the other hand, the expression of fact in this context is not limited to cases where the facts are directly expressed, and even in cases of indirect and indirect expression of fact, it indicates the existence of such fact in light of the whole purport of that expression, and thereby, is likely to infringe on the social value or assessment of a specific person.