Yoon Gap-geun, the former chief of the Daegu High Prosecutors' Office, lost his appeal in a defamation lawsuit against JTBC and its former president, Sohn Suk-hee, as well as the reporters involved.
On September 2, the Seoul High Court's Civil Division 13-1 (Presiding Judge Baek Kang-jin, Lee Kyu-hong, and Hwang Jin-goo) overturned the lower court's ruling that had partially favored Yoon, declaring him the loser in the appeal. This decision completely reversed the initial ruling that ordered the defendants to jointly pay 70 million won in damages.
The case dates back to March 2019, when JTBC reported that Yoon Jung-cheon, a key figure in the Kim Hak-ui villa sex bribery case, acknowledged his connection with Yoon during an investigation by the Supreme Prosecutors' Office. The report included claims that Yoon had dined and played golf with Yoon Gap-geun multiple times, and that Yoon's driver had previously seen Yoon Gap-geun at the villa.
In response to the report, Yoon Gap-geun strongly denied any acquaintance with Yoon Jung-cheon, stating that he had never played golf or dined with him, and subsequently filed a lawsuit seeking over 300 million won in damages against JTBC and others.
The initial court ruled in favor of Yoon, determining that the report exceeded the bounds of legitimate media activity aimed at monitoring public officials and constituted a malicious and reckless attack. The court found the testimony of Yoon's driver and the credibility of the investigation report insufficient, concluding that JTBC had failed to verify the facts adequately before disseminating the allegations, thus holding them liable for damages of 70 million won.
However, the appeals court reached a different conclusion. It ruled that there was insufficient evidence to establish the falsehood of the report, making it difficult to impose defamation liability. While acknowledging some inappropriate or inadequate aspects of JTBC's reporting process, the court stated that the lack of objective confirmation of the allegations raised during the investigation did not warrant defamation liability against the media.
The court emphasized that the report aligned with the media's public interest mission to monitor and critique public officials and the public sector, asserting that there were sufficient and reasonable grounds to raise the allegations. It noted that issues in the reporting process could not easily restrict press freedom and the public nature of the report.
Regarding the credibility of the driver's testimony, the court interpreted the discrepancies between the driver's statements during the police investigation in 2013 and the historical investigation in 2019 as a natural phenomenon of memory fading over time.
In addition to the JTBC case, Yoon Gap-geun has also pursued a separate lawsuit seeking over 500 million won in damages against officials from the Ministry of Justice's Past Affairs Committee, who publicly announced allegations of collusion involving him. The defendants include Jeong Han-jung, the former acting chair of the committee, Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Yong-min, and former prosecutor Lee Kyu-won, who handled the investigation.
The same court upheld the ruling in this case as well, stating that it could not definitively conclude that the committee's investigation and review announcements were false, nor could it impose liability for damages regarding the circumstances under which the investigation details were leaked to the media.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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