A court has ruled that the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) acted unlawfully when it withheld a whistleblower review report on the grounds that it was internal review material.
According to legal circles on the 9th, the Seoul Administrative Court's Administrative Division 3 (presiding judge Ho Sung-ho) ruled in favor of the plaintiff in June in a lawsuit filed by a person identified as A against the chairman of the ACRC, seeking to cancel a decision denying an information disclosure request.
A had filed a public interest report through the ACRC's Cheongryeom Portal, alleging that "an unqualified demolition contractor illegally dismantled public sewer pipes in the Jongno-gu area of Seoul." The ACRC later notified A that it had closed the report on the grounds that an investigative agency had already completed an investigation into the same matter. A requested disclosure of the review report on the public interest report, but the ACRC issued a non-disclosure decision, stating that "if the review report, prepared for internal review, were disclosed, it could cause difficulties in carrying out future duties." A then filed the administrative lawsuit.
The court sided with A. The court noted that "most of the content of the review report concerns the progress of the case handling, and it contains almost no statements from related parties such as the reporter and cooperators, or specific opinions of investigators or authors." It further judged that, since the...
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