Park Si-soo reports:
A law that provided the legal grounds to indict “Minerva,” a well-known Internet commentator, for spreading “misleading” information on the Internet was ruled unconstitutional, Tuesday.
The Constitutional Court’s ruling immediately brought an end to the 49-year-old law, which opposition legislators claimed had been abused to gag anti-government bloggers amid concerns about the growing influence of the Internet in this extensively wired country.
Clause 1 of Article 47 of the Electricity Telecommunications Act states that a person can face up to five years in prison or a 50 million won fine for spreading misleading information with the intention of harming “the public interest” via the telecommunications infrastructure, including the Internet.
But the court said the term “public interest” was so unclear that it failed to meet the constitutional requirement of a clear definition for those breaking the law.
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Image of Korea Constitutional Court from Wikimedia, used under Creative Commons License.