hankyoreh

An attendee despairingly places his head in his hands during an emergency meeting of the Corporate Association of Kaesong Industrial Complex at the headquarters of the Korea Federation of SMEs in Seoul’s Yeouido neighborhood

The South Korean government has rejected a request to make public the legal grounds for its complete suspension of operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, citing concerns that this could damage the national interest.

The international commerce committee (chaired by Song Gi-ho) with MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society announced on Feb. 25 that the Unification Ministry on Feb. 23 had rejected MINBYUN’s freedom of information request, refusing to release the legal grounds for the government’s decision to suspend operations at the complex.

In explanation of its rejection of MINBYUN’s freedom of information request, the Ministry said that there were concerns that releasing the information could seriously harm major national interests.

MINBYUN said that it had lodged a formal objection to the Unification Ministry’s decision not to disclose the information. If the Ministry once again refuses to make the information public, MINBYUN is planning to file a lawsuit to force the Ministry to do so.

“In a country that is under the rule of law, it is completely normal to ask the government to explain the grounds for its decisions. In order to make a decision on such an important matter, there must be legal grounds. Claiming that making these grounds public would infringe the national interest is a violation of our constitutional order,” said Song Gi-ho.

MINBYUN filed the freedom of information request with the Blue House and the Unification Ministry on Feb. 11, asking them to explain whether the decision to suspend operations at Kaesong was an emergency order by the president under the constitution or whether it was a suspension of a cooperation project under the Inter-Korean Cooperation and Exchange Act.

By Hyun So-eun and Kim Jin-cheol, staff reporters

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