Lee Soo-jung, People Power Party constituency committee chair [Yonhap]
Lee Soo-jung, People Power Party constituency committee chair [Yonhap]

Lee Soo-jung, a People Power Party constituency committee chair and Kyonggi University professor, has decided to appeal to the Supreme Court after an appellate court upheld a fine that strips her of the right to run for public office — a penalty handed down over a social media post falsely claiming that President Lee Jae Myung's two sons had been exempted from military service ahead of the 21st presidential election.

Lee wrote on SNS Friday that before the 2025 presidential election, Lee had downloaded a single image file about "Lee Jae Myung and his three male relatives' failure to complete military service" from KakaoTalk and saved it to Facebook, only to delete it within 10 minutes. Lee said the Suwon High Court, in its ruling Thursday, found that saving the file constituted public dissemination and that Lee had intended to influence the election — even without knowing the content was false — and convicted Lee on that basis.

"I have decided to appeal to the Supreme Court, as I believe there are points worth contesting," she said. "I will let the Supreme Court determine what is right and wrong."

Lee was indicted on charges of violating the Public Official Election Act — for publishing false information and defaming a candidate — as well as the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection for defamation. Both the trial court and the appellate court sentenced her to a fine of 3 million won ($2,250). If the sentence is finalized, her right to stand for election will be suspended for five years under the Public Official Election Act, which bars anyone fined 1 million won or more from running — meaning she would be ineligible for the 23rd general election in April 2028.

Lee had earlier explained that she "briefly shared information circulating online, then immediately deleted it after confirming it was incorrect," and asked for "generous forgiveness."

During the appeals process, she also argued that she "did not recognize the possibility that the post was false at the time of uploading" and had "voluntarily deleted it immediately after confirming the facts were wrong," adding that the post had been live for only about nine minutes. The court rejected those arguments.


yeonjoo7@heraldcorp.com