The Supreme Court has ruled that a netizen who left a comment calling Sinawi guitarist Shin Dae-chul a "yangachi" (petty punk/gangster) after Shin publicly declared his support for then-presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung ahead of the 2022 presidential election cannot be punished for the crime of insult.

The Supreme Court's Second Division (Presiding Justice Kwon Young-jun) recently overturned the lower court's ruling, which had sentenced a netizen surnamed Kim to a fine of 500,000 won on charges of insult, and sent the case back to the Jeju District Court.

Kim was put on trial for leaving a comment on an online news article in February 2022 regarding Shin's public endorsement of then-presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung, writing, "Does a yangachi supporting a yangachi even make the news?"

The first and second-instance courts recognized Kim's charge of insult as guilty and sentenced him to a fine of 500,000 won.

They judged that the term "yangachi," which is a slang expression referring to a beggar or someone with base behavior who constantly commits malicious acts, constituted an abstract judgment or expression of contemptuous emotion capable of lowering social evaluation.

However, the Supreme Court took the stance of acquittal, stating that the comment in question "is difficult to be seen as a hateful expression that seriously infringes upon personal rights or inflicts humiliation to the extent of destroying the counterpart's character."

Considering the overall context, expression methods, and meaning of the comment, Shin's status as a public figure, and the nature of online news comment sections as public forums for political discourse, the court added that "it appears closer to a somewhat unrefined expression intended to convey the defendant's negative or critical opinions and emotions."

The Supreme Court stated, "It is necessary to exercise caution in applying the yardstick of the crime of insult and exercising state punitive power to such a degree of expression."

An official from the Supreme Court explained, "This ruling reaffirms the existing legal doctrine that rude expressions that displease the other party, or minor abstract expressions and curses expressing negative or critical opinions, do not constitute the elements of the crime of insult unless they are hateful curses that seriously infringe upon personal rights or cause humiliation."

(Photo: Yonhap News)