2018No1498 Injury, insult, or defamation

A

Defendant

He/she shall file a prosecution, and conduct a public trial under his/her jurisdiction.

Public-Service Advocates B

Jeonju District Court Decision 2018Gohap374 Decided October 25, 2018

August 28, 2019

The defendant's appeal is dismissed.

1. Summary of grounds for appeal;

(a) An injury;

Although the defendant is guilty of a fighting match with the victim C's body, he/she does not injure the victim C's face by drinking as stated in the facts charged.

B. The fact that defamation against victim D (the fact-finding error and the misapprehension of legal principle)

The defendant did not say that "E and victim D did not pay the company's money," and only revealed the fact of embezzlement of victim D by distributing the judgment, which is only related to the public interest, and the illegality is excluded by Article 310 of the Criminal Act.

C. The point of defamation against victim E (the misunderstanding of facts and misapprehension of legal principles)

Article 307(1) of the Criminal Act is not Article 307(2) of the Criminal Act, since the victim E merely asserted that the victim E was negligent in business management in connection with D’s embezzlement, and the victim E did not speak to the effect that the act of embezzlement was committed in collusion with D, Article 307(1) of the Criminal Act should be applied. Even if the Defendant partly false facts exist, this is deemed to be true for the benefit of the public interest, and there are reasonable grounds to believe such facts, and thus, illegality is excluded in accordance with Article 310 of the Criminal Act.

2. Determination

A. Determination on injury

The defendant argued to the same effect as the reasons for appeal in this part of the judgment below, and the court below rejected the judgment in detail as to the above argument in Section 2-A under the title "Defendant A's assertion and judgment about it" in the judgment of the court below. In comparison with the above judgment of the court below, the judgment of the court below is just, and it is not erroneous in the misapprehension of facts. Thus, this part of the defendant's assertion is without merit.

B. Determination as to defamation against victim D

1) Article 310 of the Criminal Act provides, “When an act under Article 307(1) is true and solely for the public interest, the act shall not be punishable.” Thus, if an act of impairing a person’s reputation by openly pointing out a fact is objectively deemed unlawful and not punished in accordance with the above provision, it shall be objectively related to the public interest, and an actor shall also indicate the fact for the public interest. In this case, whether the alleged fact constitutes a public interest or not shall be determined by comparing and comparing the degree of infringement of another person’s reputation, which may be damaged or damaged by the expression, with the consideration of all the circumstances as to the expression itself, including the specific contents of the relevant timely fact, the scope of the other party to whom the relevant fact was published, and the method of expression (see Supreme Court Decision 9Do5734, May 12, 200).

2) In light of the following circumstances acknowledged by the evidence duly adopted and examined by the court below, i.e., ① the defendant distributed a copy of the judgment against the victim and E and other union members, as stated in this part of the facts charged, to the effect that "the defendant did not know the victim and Eranc with the president" (hereinafter referred to as "the judgment of this case"), and ② the defendant merely stated that the victim embezzled the money of the F Association (hereinafter referred to as "the union of this case") with the victim. However, the defendant appears to have distributed the judgment of this case in collusion with E in order to slander E as the representative of the union of this case at the time when the victim embezzled the money of the union of this case. ③ The defendant's distribution of the victim's personal information including the victim's personal information to the victim's personal information, etc., as well as the defendant's personal information to the victim's personal information, and the defendant's act of expressing the victim's personal information to the majority members of this case cannot be seen as being in conflict with the defendant's prior expression of the contents and reasons.

C. Determination on defamation against victim E

In light of the following circumstances acknowledged by the evidence duly adopted and examined by the court below, i.e., (i) according to the victim and other members' statements, the defendant distributed the judgment of this case as stated in this part of the facts charged, and (ii) the judgment of this case only contains the fact that D alone embezzled the money owned by the association; (iii) the victim was investigated as D and accomplice and was subject to non-prosecution disposition by the prosecution; and (iv) the defendant was delivered a copy of the judgment of this case on August 29, 2017. The defendant distributed the judgment of this case to the union members around September 5, 2017. The defendant did not properly grasp whether the victim was actually involved in the embezzlement of D based on arbitrary trends, and the defendant did not have any reasonable reason to believe that it was unlawful as well as the distribution of the judgment of this case by considering the following facts.

3. Conclusion

Therefore, the defendant's appeal is without merit, and it is dismissed in accordance with Article 364 (4) of the Criminal Procedure Act. It is so decided as per Disposition.

Judges of the presiding judge only;

Judge Cho Jin-han

Justices Kim Han-chul