The Supreme Court has delivered a ruling with the intent to acquit a defendant who was indicted on charges of insult after referring to the representative of an apartment resident association as a "son of a bitch" in a group chat room for residents.

The Supreme Court's Third Division (Presiding Justice Lee Heung-goo) overturned the lower court's ruling, which had sentenced the defendant, identified as A, to a fine of 300,000 KRW for insult, and sent the case back to the Seoul Northern District Court.

Defendant A was put on trial for insulting B, the representative of the apartment residents, in April 2022 within a group chat room with numerous apartment residents participating.

Upon learning that B had sent text messages to apartment building representatives describing the head of the women's association as a bad person, A became angry and sent a message stating, "This kind of person is fabricating groundless rumors. Also, text messages are circulating saying that the head of the women's association is an even worse person (than a certain individual). The content written by this son of a bitch..."

The first instance court acknowledged the charges and sentenced A to a fine of 300,000 KRW.

A argued that the remark was merely a mild and abstract expression that did not meet the constituent requirements of the crime of insult, but this was not accepted in the second instance either.

However, the Supreme Court ruled with the intent of acquittal.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed the legal principle that "if a certain expression is rude and impolite enough to make the other party unpleasant, or if it uses a mild level of abstract expression or swearing while expressing negative emotions toward the other party, it cannot be regarded as an expression that infringes upon external reputation, barring special circumstances, and thus the crime of insult is not established."

The Supreme Court judged that the message sent by A was also a simple swear word expressing negative emotions toward B, which merely amounted to an expression likely to hurt B's subjective feelings, and did not constitute an insult capable of degrading social evaluation.

(Photo: Yonhap News)