Government Is Hiding Secret

In administrative lawsuits, the percentage of cases requiring the cancellation of denied access to information in which the government and administrative agencies lost has been on the rise: 43.75% in 2003; 50% in 2004; 59.6% in 2005; 66.7% in 2006; and 61.8% in 2007 (until June 20). This newspaper analyzed a total of 221 cases ruled by trial courts nationwide, including the Seoul Administrative Court, between January 2003 and June 2007.

For their unreasonable denial of access to information, the number of cases in which public institutions lost has been increasing: 14 in 2003; 21 in 2004; 28 in 2005; and 44 in 2006. Meanwhile, the number of cases where they won is quite constant level of 14-18.

The Government’s arbitrary interpretation-

The cause of the hike in lost cases lies on the scope of “classified documents.” The public institutions interpret their scope broadly and arbitrarily in most cases.

They have denied revealing confidential documents for several reasons. They claim that unveiling documents to the public could bring inconveniences to their work and raise privacy issues. They also argue that the documents are either business secrets or they do not have them.

The Human Resources Development Service of Korea lost in a lawsuit when they denied the requests of test takers who failed the real estate license test and asked the agency to unveil the average score.

The agency said they do not have the average score, but the court differently interpreted this, saying, “The agency has de facto the document since it can easily make it by searching and editing after setting a few conditions on a computer.”

The court judged that if public institutions deny the access to information that can be easily created, though not the exactly the data the public requests, the meaning of the public’s right to know and the law of open information is lost.”

A senior judge of the Seoul Administrative Court said, “The rulings on opening information to the public is a kind of a guideline that enables the state and public agencies to judge whether to unveil information or not. The institutions’ constant arbitrary interpretations lead to the increase in number of cases in which public institutions lose.

An increasing number of agencies are going to higher courts with the case, defying the ruling to the lower court.

The Supreme Court says its cases are rising as well: 36 in 2002; 43 in 2003; 57 in 2004; 79 in 2005; 99 in 2006; and 73 in 2007 (as of May 22). Another reason for the increase is the frequent rejections of requests to disclose information to the public.

The “2005 Information Disclosure Annual Report” released by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs shows that only 383 or 29 percent of 1315 complaint cases in total have been accepted related to classified and partially classified information.

The Right to Know Trumps the Interest of Institutions-

In those lawsuits, more courts are siding with the public rather than the government or public agencies, because they value the right to know more than the interest of the agencies they can get through classification.

While public institutions strongly deny the disclosure of information for various reasons, courts acknowledge the public’s right to ask for the information disclosure based on the right to know and the purpose of the Korean version of the Freedom of Information Act.

Other good examples are the cases of the Korea National Housing Corporation (KNHC) and the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development. Courts ruled that both institutions to unveil information on the original housing prices and the raw scores of the Korean SAT respectively.

Kim Jeong-wook, the administrative judge of Seoul Administrative Court, said, “Courts are seeing the information disclosure cases more from the perspective based on the public’s right to know. Society is also changing toward that direction, which seems to have an influence on those cases.”

Some judges point out that the vague and ambiguous articles that give maneuvers for public institutions to interpret at their will should be revised.

Article 9 of the Freedom of Information Act defines classified information as information that can cause serious hindrances to the fair execution of business and research and development, that can greatly undermine the nation’s interest, and that can seriously harm the justified interest of corporations, but that scope is abstract and ambiguous.

wing@donga.com