Constitutional Court Hears Debate on Minerva and Limit of Free Speech
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Does a law that punishes the spread of groundless rumors on the Internet unduly restrict the freedom of expression?
The Constitutional Court held a public hearing, Thursday, ahead of a ruling on whether an article of the Telecommunications Law infringes on the constitutionally guaranteed right and is thus unconstitutional.
The article that can put violators behind bars for up to five years or slap a fine of 50 million won tested following the indictment of Park Dae-sung, who is better known here by his Internet alias "Minerva,"for violating the article.
The 30-year-old was later found not guilty of the charge by a provincial court, but the case raised questions over how much freedom of expression in cyberspace is permissable in one of the world's most wired countries.
Park was detained and arrested in January on charges of spreading what the authorities called "false" financial rumors through articles he posted on the country's second-largest portal site between July and December last year. In January, Park filed a petition with the court to judge whether the article was constitutional.
Many of his predictions on the domestic and international economy later turned out to be untrue, but some of them, including the fall of Lehman Brothers and the plunge of the won against the U.S. dollar, presented him with rock-star status and numerous followers.
In the hearing, lawyers representing the government claimed the necessity of the article, saying it has served as one of the last resorts that prevent people with malicious intent from spreading false rumors to destabilize the society.
Their opponents refuted it, calling the law an obsolete regulation overly restricting people's freedom of expression on the Internet.
An exact date for the ruling based on the hearing has yet to be decided, said Roh Hee-bum, a representative of the court.