The judgment of the court below is reversed.

A defendant shall be punished by a fine of 500,000 won.

The above fine shall not be paid by the defendant.

1. Judgment on the Defendant’s misunderstanding of facts or misapprehension of legal principles

A. 1) The summary of the facts charged in this part of the charge is that the Defendant prepared an online newspaper article (hereinafter “instant article”) and published a false fact that the I candidate involved in the competition including himself/herself in the highest meeting (hereinafter “H constituency”) in the 20th National Assembly election, although the F Party I, who was going to the H constituency in Gwangju Metropolitan City (hereinafter “H constituency”), did not participate in the meeting at the time of discussing the case of raising an objection against the H constituency election of the F Party highest committee, and did not intervene in the decision-making of the highest committee.

2) In order to establish a crime of publishing false facts under Article 250(1) of the Act on the Election of Public Officials of the relevant legal principles, the publication of false facts must first be made public.

The false fact here is not consistent with the truth, and is sufficient if the elector has the accuracy to the extent that it can misleads the correct judgment of the candidate, but it does not constitute merely an expression of opinion with simple value judgment or evaluation.

In order to distinguish whether a statement is a factual assertion or an expression of opinion, the determination ought to be made in consideration of the overall circumstances, such as the ordinary meaning and usage of the language, the context in which the language in question was used, the possibility of proof, and the social situation in which the expression was made, in mind, in mind that the legislative intent of ensuring the fairness of election is to be ensured (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decisions 2001Do6138, Feb. 20, 2003; 2007Do4294, Aug. 24, 2007). In addition, under a democratic political system, the freedom of speech should be sufficiently guaranteed as the fundamental right in the election process as the most fundamental right.