By Kim Bo-eun
The Constitutional Court dismissed a case of alleged surveillance of Internet use by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Thursday, after the complainant died.
The court is able to close a case without delivering a ruling in the event of the death of the person filing the petition.
Kim Hyeong-geun, a former high school ethics teacher and union member, filed the petition in March 2011. He was indicted on charges of violating the National Security Law after creating a test question about an agreement at the 2007 Inter-Korean Summit. The NIS allegedly monitored his Internet use and phone calls from December 2010 to February 2011. Kim filed the claim, saying that the monitoring violated the principle of freedom of communication and that it was an invasion of his privacy.
But he died of liver cancer last September.
Investigation agencies such as the NIS are able to monitor for purposes of criminal investigations or national security, upon receiving approval from a court, according to current regulations on communications privacy.