hankyoreh

President Park Geun-hye weeps as she reads out the names of people who sacrificed their own safety to save others aboard the Sewol ferry

The Blue House’s refusal to publish the details of reports made to South Korean President Park Geun-hye on the day of the Sewol ferry sinking in April 2014 is legal, a court has ruled.

On Mar. 23, Hon. Ho Je-hun, a judge in the 11th administrative division of the Seoul Administrative Court, partially ruled in favor Ha Seung-su, co-chair of the Green Party’s steering committee, who is the plaintiff in a freedom of information lawsuit. Ha sued the Office of the President, the National Security Office and the Presidential Security Service to force them to make public information related to the actions of the president on the day the Sewol ferry sank.

There are four pieces of information that the Green Party requested in the lawsuit: first, a record of verbal and written reports made to President Park by the Office of the President and the National Security Office on the day of the Sewol tragedy; second, a list of documents created or received by the Blue House on the same day; third, a record of how the Blue House executed its budget for special activities and overseas travel; and fourth, a list of information at the Blue House since Park‘s inauguration in Feb. 2013.

In regard to the most important piece of information, namely the written reports made to the president on the day of the tragedy, the court ruled that the Blue House was justified in not making this public.

“Since the written reports that Park’s chief of staff made to her on Apr. 16, 2014, the day of the tragedy, are related to the process of communication, making them public could create difficulties for officials going about their legitimate work,” the judge said.

The court accepted the plaintiff’s arguments in regard to the other three items, however, and ordered the Blue House to make them public.

“Since the Blue House did not accept an application for a private reading of these records either, it is appropriate to make this information public according to the Freedom of Information Act,” the judge said.

“The decision is significant in that it confirms that the Blue House and the president are responsible for making information public,” said Ha Seung-su in a press conference at Seoul Administrative Court immediately after the ruling.

“It’s too bad that the court rejected our lawsuit about the written reports to the president on the day of the tragedy, which is a matter of interest to the entire Korean public. The court’s decision does not take seriously the people’s right to know.”

“It is very regrettable that the court concluded that the written reports that the Office of the President made to the president on the day of the Sewol tragedy do not have to be made public, since these were the crux of this lawsuit,” the Green Party said in a press release. “The court gave more weight to the Blue House‘s lame excuses than to the people’s right to know. How exactly would making public the information about the Sewol tragedy make it harder to run the country?”

The Green Party pledged to appeal the decision.

In Aug. 2014, the Green Party asked the Blue House to make public the reports that the president had received on the day of the Sewol tragedy. That October, after the Blue House decided to keep those reports secret, the Green Party filed this lawsuit.

The Blue House employed a variety of stalling tactics during the trial, and it ultimately took one year and five months for a decision to be made.

The Blue House insisted that no records existed of President Park’s verbal instructions and verbal reports on the day of the tragedy.

While the court had initially decided to give its verdict in Sep. 2015, it instead decided to resume hearings and ordered the Blue House to submit relevant documents to the court in private. But the Blue House has refused to do even this, without specifying an exact reason.

In related news, a lawsuit that the Hankyoreh filed against the Blue House in Dec. 2014 to make public the activity of President Park on the day of the Sewol tragedy is still pending at the Seoul Administrative Court, one year and three months later.

While the sentencing was initially scheduled for January, the court decided to hear more arguments in the trial. Even after 15 months, that lawsuit is not making any headway, either.

By Han So-eun, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]