Official Information Disclosure Act | A Decision to Withhold the Telephone Number of an Accident Reporter Was 'Unlawful'

The background of the litigation concerning the Official Information Disclosure Act is as follows.

An unidentified reporter found A, who had sustained a bodily injury, next to a sit-up exercise machine installed in a park and reported the situation to 119. The dispatched ambulance crew transported A to a university hospital emergency room.

On that day, A underwent surgical treatment on two occasions, including a 'reduction of dislocation and fusion at the anterior and posterior cervical spine.'

At the time, the 119 emergency activity log recorded statements such as 'Upon arrival at the scene, the patient had been rescued by the reporter and was sitting next to the sit-up machine with his eyes open' and 'During the second patient assessment, there was almost no spontaneous movement of the limbs, and the patient complained of pain, with sensation felt down to the abdomen.'

In order to verify the initial reporter's statement, A requested disclosure of the emergency activity log from the fire station. The fire station, however, decided to withhold the reporter's telephone number and the name of the person who received the patient at the hospital, relying on the Official Information Disclosure Act on grounds such as a risk of infringing privacy or freedom.

In response, A asserted that the 'reporter's telephone number' recorded in the emergency activity log was not information subject to non-disclosure, and filed a lawsuit to revoke the disposition refusing information disclosure.

The District Court that heard the civil action concerning the Official Information Disclosure Act entered a judgment for the plaintiff in the action for 'revocation of the disposition refusing information disclosure' that A brought against the head of the fire station, ordering that “the reporter's telephone number be disclosed.”

The court found that A, who intended to bring a claim for damages against the district office responsible for the installation and management of the exercise machine that had caused the injury, needed to contact the reporter and verify the statement in order to ascertain the precise cause at the time of the incident and to prepare materials for the litigation.

In addition, because the reporter's mobile phone was the only means by which A could make contact, the court determined that it was information that needed to be disclosed for the remedy of A's rights.

Accordingly, the court stated that “the interest in the remedy of A's rights protected by disclosure of the information outweighs the interest in an individual's privacy and the like protected by non-disclosure of the reporter's telephone number” and held that it “is recognized as an exception to the information subject to non-disclosure provided under the Official Information Disclosure Act.”

We analyzed the judgment of the District Court, which, in connection with the Official Information Disclosure Act, held that information must be disclosed where the interest in the remedy of an individual's rights protected by disclosing the information is found to outweigh the interest in the privacy of an individual and the like protected by a public institution's withholding of the information.

As in the case of the plaintiff in the above judgment, the gathering of evidence in order to bring a claim for damages is very important.

The statements of eyewitnesses at the scene, the statements of the victim, and CCTV footage capturing the incident may serve as useful evidence.

With the assistance of legal professionals in this regard, more reliable evidence can be collected.

Daeryun Law Firm LLP's 🔗Examination of Evidence, Digital Forensics, and Security Group provides specialized evidence-gathering services so that various civil and criminal issues, from an individual's family matters to a company's technology leaks, can be resolved under the client's direction.

If you need assistance, you are welcome to request support from Daeryun Law Firm.