트위터(Twitter)를 이용한 선거운동의 공직선거법 적용방안에 관한 공법적 연구

People’s interest in election has increased as election issues directly related to policy were spread widely in short time through twitter in the 5th Local Elections in 2010. It is a phenomenon contrasting to the previous election, which main issues used to delivered through a method of advertising activities through mass media such as newspaper and broadcasting, or through personal homepage, internet cafe, and blog, or sending an email. And this shows increased influence of information and communication medium is also extensively appearing in election. Twitter is a medium that has contributed to fast delivery of information most significantly. Twitter is a sort of social connection service network where users can form a relation and communicate in real time through computer or mobile phone, and it is a system where a sender write a post within the range of 140 characters and a person who wants to receive the post register the sender as a follower without agreement or approval of the sender to receive information, and information quickly spreads in a short time as other individuals re-tweet this. However, public election law was applied same as other media as twitter is considered as means of communication using information communication media, and it caused controversy as civic groups have expressed their opinions and the constitution has been proposed. This is because regulations on election campaign under public election law became to be applied to people directly as general mass started to participate in election campaign as the main agent with appearance of information communication media such as twitter, but on the other hand, public election law which regulates election campaign activities, used to be a way to protect people from pluctocratic election and illegal election as existing election campaigns were mainly fulfilled through a method where a person who can run an election campaign provides information and voters receive this information. Constitutional Court has judged the Article 93 of current public election law as consitutional as a result of judging it based on principle of disclosure and principle of excessive prohibition even through unconstitutional opinion was majority with 5 people but it did not reach the quorum. It is difficult to exclude twitter from other media or other similar things or to interpret it as homepage or email under this current public election law. Therefore, it will be a practical alternative to include twitter into a range of other similar media but clarifying the standard of prohibited action clearly and minimizing it during the process of executing law. However in a long term, it is a task to be improved in order to promise freedom of expression and to increase rights and interests of people. Therefore, a standpoint of fundamental change about purpose, ideology, and system of current public election law must be introduced. According to these controversies, National Election Commission is pushing ahead with revision of law to expand freedom of expression by submitting a revision opinion about public election law to run an election campaign using all information communication media at ordinary times for 2011 election for assembly and president.