Supreme Court, “Freedom of Expression Does Not Apply” to the Malicious Comment “Nation’s Hotel Girl”

Supreme Court justices including Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su are seated for a full bench ruling at the Supreme Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul on December 22. Yonhap News

The Supreme Court ruled that the online comment which spitefully referred to a celebrity as the “nation’s hotel girl” was an insult. The court announced that even in the case of online comments about a public figure, the freedom of expression could not always be recognized if the comment was related to her privacy or if it expressed hate. The court made it clear that the freedom of expression must go in harmony with the protection of an individual’s personal rights.

On December 28, the second petty bench of the Supreme Court (head justice Min You-sook) annulled the decision by the lower court, which acquitted A of insult, and sent the case back to the Seoul Northern District Court.

In 2015, A posted online comments slandering the celebrity, B, on an article of a movie starring B. He wrote, “She’s just the nation’s hotel girl, a bubble created by ‘media play,’” and “Why put the film-crashing used-up B against ***?” During the trial, A testified that he referred to B as the “nation’s hotel girl”--derived from the expression “nation’s younger sister”--after hearing about the scandal between B and a male celebrity.

The lower courts made different rulings on whether A’s actions were an insult. In the first trial, the court announced that A’s expression was an insult that could lower the social reputation of B and imposed a fine of one million won. But in the second trial, the court acquitted A. The court claimed that they could not apply the same standard in determining an insult to a person receiving public attention, such as a celebrity, and a non-celebrity.

However, the Supreme Court cancelled the second ruling explaining that the “nation’s hotel girl” could be misogynistic. The court said, “The expression, the ‘nation’s hotel girl’ can suggest an image opposite the innocent image that the victim had previously shown the public and it degraded the victim as a sexual object.” The court explained, “It can be assessed as a humiliating expression that could tarnish the social reputation of the victim, a female celebrity, and it cannot be seen as a justifiable act for it goes outside the scope of just criticism.”

The Supreme Court also made it clear that even if it involves a public figure, when it concerns her privacy, then there is a need to apply a narrow definition of freedom of expression. The Supreme Court said, “We need to be careful when we rule that offensive expressions on the privacy of a celebrity are not an insult or do not violate social norms on grounds of freedom of expression,” presenting a new legal principle.

The Supreme Court further said, “Recently, expressions of hatred based on one’s race, gender and native region are emerging as a social problem,” and added, “We need to take into consideration the fact that among such hate expressions, there are not a few that tarnish the social reputation of the victim, fulfilling the conditions for an insult.”