The defendant's appeal is dismissed.

Summary of Grounds for Appeal

The function of monitoring and criticism on public existence of legal principles or public interest issues shall not be easily restricted unless they are malicious or considerably unreasonable. Even if the content of the notice is different from the fact, if there are reasonable grounds to believe that important parts are consistent with the truth and are true, illegality shall not be recognized.

The sentence of the lower court on unreasonable sentencing (fine 5 million won) is too unreasonable.

Judgment

In full view of the evidence duly admitted and examined by the lower court regarding the assertion of misapprehension of the legal doctrine, even if a thorough examination of the content and the evidence presented by the Defendant is conducted, the publication of the facts charged may not be false.

There is no reasonable doubt that the defendant could not have known that the content is false even if the defendant did not know it.

In addition, whether there exists a “purpose of slandering a person” under Article 70(2) of the Information and Communications Network Act ought to be determined by weighing and balancing the degree of infringement of honor that may be damaged or damaged by the expression, taking into account all the circumstances regarding the expression itself, such as the content and nature of the relevant publicly alleged fact, the scope of the other party to whom the relevant fact was published, and the method of expression.

Even if the content of the Defendant’s writing is about the cause of the Sewol ferry accident, which is a national interest, it constitutes a false fact that the content intentionally planned the Sewol ferry incident that caused many victims, and thus, it is recognized that there was a purpose of slandering against the Defendant.

Thus, as long as the purpose of false awareness and slandering the defendant is recognized, it shall not be deemed that the defendant's act solely aims for the public interest and it does not constitute a case where there is a considerable reason to believe

The former Act on Promotion of Utilization of Information and Communications Network and Information Protection, etc. shall be December 2007.