Court Orders Re-disclosure of Yoon Mee-hyang's 'Meeting Records' During Comfort Women Agreement

Hanbyun: "Rep. Yoon was aware of the agreement in advance... did not inform the victim grandmothers"
Law: "Ministry of Foreign Affairs official and Jeong Dae-hyeop representative disclosed 'meeting topics'... sensitive content excluded"

[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Kyung-jun] A ruling has once again been made ordering the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to disclose the records of a meeting with Yoon Mi-hyang, an independent lawmaker who was the executive representative of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Jeongdae-hyeop) at the time of the 2015 Korea-Japan comfort women agreement.

The Administrative Division 4-1 of the Seoul High Court (Presiding Judges Kwon Ki-hoon, Han Kyu-hyun, Kim Jae-ho) dismissed the appeal filed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 11th, which challenged the first-instance ruling ordering the disclosure of the meeting records. The court ruled, as in the first trial, that four out of five pieces of information the Ministry had refused to disclose must be made public.

The lawyer group "Lawyers for Human Rights and Unification of Korea (Hanbyeon)" filed a lawsuit in June 2020 against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, demanding the disclosure of the meeting records with Lawmaker Yoon. At that time, suspicions were raised that Yoon had prior knowledge of the contents of the Korea-Japan comfort women agreement announcement but did not inform the surviving victims.

The first-instance court stated, "The documents ordered to be disclosed are the results of meetings between Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and the representative of Jeongdae-hyeop, including the date, location, and topics of the meetings," adding, "All sensitive matters such as specific diplomatic negotiations were excluded from disclosure."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs appealed, judging that the information requested by Hanbyeon at the time was subject to non-disclosure under the Public Information Disclosure Act as it could harm the nation's significant interests if revealed, but the court did not accept the appeal.

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