7
The Supreme Court’s curt rejection of the "actual malice" doctrine in 1997 was a subtle but
unmistakable indication that the American libel defense will not be accepted in Korean law at least for a
while. The Supreme Court’s reluctance to recognize "actual malice" was more clearly expressed in a
1998 libel case involving Julie Moon, a Korean-American journalist. In an MBC radio program, Moon, a
vociferous critic of the South Korean government under President Park Chung Hee in the 1970s, was
portrayed as a sycophant to former KCIA Director Kim Hyong-uk and as fawning upon first lady Yuk
Yong-su of President Park. The radio docudrama further depicted Moon as having "kowtowed" to Kim
for information as though he were a defender of democracy after his defection to the United States. Moon
won damages against MBC for libel.
36
On appeal, MBC argued that as "a public figure," Moon possessed the means to present her own
side of the story and to defend herself against the unflattering radio program. MBC stressed that Moon
was "a pervasive public figure" who was newsworthy enough to influence matters of public concern and
who was widely known as a pro-North Korean journalist in the Korean-American community. "In order
to make a cause of action for defamation," MBC claimed, "a public figure must prove that the publisher
entertained ’actual malice, or knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for whether the statement was
false or not.’"
37
MBC relied mostly on the case law of the U.S. Supreme Court for its appellate briefs.
38
The Supreme Court of Korea disagreed: "The injured party, merely because she is a public figure, does
not have to prove that defamation by broadcasting and other media was caused by actual malice."
39
The
Court defined neither "public figure" nor "actual malice."
Media law specialist Pak Yong-sang was cautious in predicting in 1997 that the "neutral
reportage" doctrine
40
of U.S. libel law"could be accepted under strictly defined circumstances" in Korean
law.
41
In a way, his discreet optimism about neutral reportage as a libel defense in Korea was remarkably
perceptive. The neutral reportage doctrine was applied by a Seoul district court in 1997 and embraced by
the Seoul High Court in 1998, albeit neither of the two courts acknowledged the doctrine as an American
libel defense. Nevertheless, the Seoul courts’ obvious adoption of the neutral reportage defense is a
surprising development in Korean libel law because the "actual malice" rule, which is less protective of
the media than the neutral reportage principle, had already been rejected by Korea’s Supreme Court.
The 1997 case of the Seoul District Court started when President Pak Hong of Sogang University
claimed in June 1997 that the Labor Union of the Korea Electricity and Telecommunication Corp. and its
Convention