Lee Eun-woo, former president of the Korea Policy Broadcasting Institute (KTV), received a suspended prison sentence on appeal over charges that he ordered the deletion of broadcast captions critical of the Dec. 3 emergency martial law declaration.
The Seoul High Court's First Criminal Division, presided over by Judge Yoon Sung-sik, on the 30th rejected appeals from both the special counsel team led by Cho Eun-suk and Lee, upholding the lower court's ruling on charges of abuse of authority and obstruction of the exercise of rights. The trial court had sentenced Lee to one year in prison, suspended for two years.
Lee was indicted on charges that, immediately after the emergency martial law declaration, he ordered the deletion of critical broadcast captions covering politicians' statements that the martial law declaration was unconstitutional.
In June, the trial court found that while Lee's order fell within the outward scope of his official duties, he had abused that authority by directing biased coverage and had infringed on the public's right to know. The court convicted him on that basis.
The appeals court also found the lower court's judgment sound. The panel ruled that Lee's instruction to the broadcast news director and the editing team leader to selectively delete captions violated the fairness and balance requirements set out in the former Broadcasting Act and infringed on the public's right to know.
"He violated his duty as a public official to perform his work faithfully and fairly," the court said. "In light of the circumstances, the degree of illegality and impropriety reached a level that cannot be assessed as the proper performance of his duties, and therefore constitutes abuse of authority."
The court noted that while scheduling and operating scrolling news fell within Lee's official authority, working-level staff such as the broadcast news director also held final decision-making authority over that work. Because these staff had their own authority and role in applying standards for carrying out their duties and in participating in the relevant procedures, the court found that ordering them to delete critical captions amounted to "making someone perform an act they were not obligated to perform."
The court said the lower court's sentence did not fall outside a reasonable range. "The defendant has continued in this trial to refuse to acknowledge his wrongdoing and has taken an attitude that appears to shift responsibility onto his subordinates," the court said, while adding that "the defendant's deletion order and the resulting caption deletions took place after the National Assembly passed its resolution demanding the lifting of emergency martial law and after the special news coverage had ended."
"The degree to which the public's right to know about the emergency martial law situation was infringed as a result of Lee's deletion order was limited," the court said. "There has been no change in circumstances warranting consideration in sentencing, and it is difficult to find the lower court's sentence either excessively heavy or excessively light."
