Bereaved Family of Shot Public Official Files Lawsuit for Presidential Records Disclosure

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] On the morning of the 20th, the bereaved family of the late Lee Dae-jun, a Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official who was killed by North Korean soldiers in the West Sea in September 2020, filed a lawsuit at the Seoul Administrative Court requesting disclosure of presidential records.

Lee’s elder brother, Lee Rae-jin, and legal representative Attorney Kim Ki-yoon submitted the complaint to the Seoul Administrative Court on the same day. At a prior press conference, Lee stated, "If materials that the court has ruled to be disclosed are designated as presidential records, this is clearly an act that violates the Constitution," and argued, "The designation of records by former President Moon Jae-in infringes on the constitutional right to know and is unconstitutional." The bereaved family also said, "The Presidential Records Act, which allows information that the court has decided to disclose to be designated as presidential records, infringes on the right to know and violates the principle of proportionality."

Previously, the bereaved family filed an injunction last year, arguing that information related to Lee’s death should not be designated as presidential records. However, the court dismissed the injunction, and subsequently former President Moon Jae-in included the information in the presidential designated records. The family appealed the dismissal, but the appellate court upheld the decision. After the Coast Guard reversed its previous announcement that "Lee appears to have defected to the North," the family filed another information disclosure lawsuit. The first trial ruled that the records should be disclosed in a manner allowing inspection. The Blue House and the Coast Guard appealed, but after President Yoon Suk-yeol took office, the appeal was withdrawn, confirming the ruling as final.

The prosecution’s investigation into this case is also gaining momentum. On the 18th, the Public Investigation Division 1 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office (Chief Prosecutor Lee Hee-dong) summoned members of the 777 Command, an intelligence unit responsible for collecting Special Intelligence (SI) of our military, as witnesses for questioning. The prosecution suspects that after the Ministry of National Defense announced in September 2020 that Lee was killed by North Korean gunfire and declared it a ‘voluntary defection,’ confidential information such as intercepted data within the Military Integrated Management System (MIMS) was deleted. It is reported that the prosecution questioned the unit members about the information supplied to and deleted from MIMS before and after Lee’s killing, as well as the nature of that information. If circumstances confirming that confidential materials that could exclude the government’s ‘voluntary defection’ judgment were deleted are found, the prosecution is expected to conduct searches and seizures of the Ministry of National Defense and the Defense Intelligence Headquarters to secure physical evidence.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.