Court rules against ban on SNS in elections

The Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that banning social networking services in election campaigns was in limited violation of the constitution.

In March last year Rep. Chung Dong-young of the then Democratic Party and a group of civilians filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court saying that the scope of “the like” in clause 1 of article 93 of the Public Office Election Act was too vast and unclear, as such violating the principle of clarity.

Clause one of Article 93 of the Public Official Election Act prohibits circulation and displaying of advertisements, posters, photographs, documents, videos and “the like” carrying messages in support of or against a specific party or a candidate from being circulated from 180 days before the date of the vote.

The National Election Commission has been treating Twitter and social networking services as being included in forms of communication included in “the like.”

With the Constitutional Court’s ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, the use of social networking services in upcoming elections next year will be allowed.

(Yonhap News)

In addition, those who have been found to have violated related regulations will be allowed a retrial.

The ruling was welcomed by the Democratic Unified Party. The party said that the decision will be an opportunity for resolving the issue of the Public Office Election Act limiting freedom of expression.

A clause is deemed to be limitedly unconstitutional when it is considered to lack clarity, allowing its interpretation to be extended.

“Limiting campaign activities on the internet cannot be described as an appropriate means of achieving the legislative aim of preventing an imbalance among the candidates’ ability to compete,” the Constitutional Court said. The court added that the internet is considered to be an important tool in lowering election campaign costs due to its high accessibility and low costs.

“In light of the fact that presidential, parliamentary and local elections will be conducted in succession, the period of limiting basic rights is too long. Preventing expression on the Internet for such a long period will weaken the foundations for realizing responsible politics and party politics.”

By Choi He-suk
(cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)