A minority opinion contradicting a Supreme Court ruling that defined a civic group as an anti-state organization for its pro-North Korea activities stirred controversy Tuesday.
The top court in July handed down a ruling that outlawed the Committee for the Implementation of the June 15 Declaration as an anti-state organization for its activities promoting pro-Pyongyang propaganda and campaigns calling for the withdrawal of the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the South as a deterrent against the communist state. The committee was
established in honor of the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
The ruling said, "North Korea is still an anti-state entity seeking to build a communist society in the South."
In a minority opinion in the ruling, however, Supreme Court Justice Park Shi-hwan said, "I do not agree with the majority opinion that saw North Korea itself as an anti-state organization," acknowledging it as a nation
with its own system and structure.
Regarding the group's demand for the withdrawal of the U.S. forces, the 57-year-old Park argued "whether or not to positively see the United States' role and intention falls under the individual's freedom of expression."
He also said that it is prosecutors' role to prove whether North Korea is an anti-state organization case by case.
The nation's national security law prohibits distributing publications praising the North or unauthorized activities sympathetic to the communist state or contact with its people.
In Tuesday's editorials, major local media raised questions about Park's qualifications as a Supreme Court justice for his biased view on North Korea.
"Although a justice who opposes the majority opinion can write his or her opinion in the Supreme Court's ruling to reflect the minority's voice, the minority opinion becomes a problem if it is against common sense and shakes the foundation of our society," Chosun Ilbo, the nation's largest conservative daily, said in its Tuesday editorial.
The JoongAng Ilbo's editorial said, "We are deeply concerned that his lopsided view may influence others who favor the North no matter what they do."
The report came amid escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula with the latest discovery of North Korea's uranium enrichment program under
development. Pyongyang conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 and is believed to have developed nuclear warheads that are small enough to be
mounted on missiles.