언론중재법의 개정 방향

A Wrong Way in Revising 'Act Relating to Registration, etc of Periodicals.'

It is high time to revise current 'Act Relating to Registration, etc of Periodicals' which has two different parts: registration process of periodicals and press arbitration process. The party in power, The Uri Party, proposed to revise the Act with separating two parts. This article is to evaluate the Uri Party's proposal of revising press arbitration system, which is in fact a new press remedy act. The press remedy act shall be neutral in solving cases raised by persons injured by press report. For the freedom of speech is, in terms of Constitution, as much valuable as reputation rights of the injured persons. If a weight tilts to reputation rights, it makes press chilled, which the history of free speech rights clearly shows in democratic countries. The Uri Party's proposal, however, is not earning the balancing of two Constitutional interests. It puts too much value on reputation rights. Under the proposal, the Press Arbitration Commission shall have enormous power, which, in my opinion, eventually leads to choke the free speech. In the United State, no government agency is entitled to make the press publish counterarguments news without showing errors of original news. However, in Korea, the Press Arbitration Commission was established in 1981 to settle disputes between the press and the injured by way of publishing counterarguments news against the press' will. Furthermore, the proposal endows the Commission with arbitrating damage claims, which enables the injured seek damages in the Commission with much less money and time than the usual judicial process in the court. It is without doubt that the Commission, which has no experience in damage claims, will be generous to the injured for its sake. The worst thing is that the Commission in nature cannot be neutral as it has functions with conflicting interests. The Commission is running a center for the persons who claims to be damages by the press. It also has the power to ask the press to redress grievances without any judicial process. These functions shall not be held by dispute settling agencies. The Commission needs to be neutral.