정보공개법을 통한 알권리 실현의 한계 : 비공개조항 관련 대법원 판결 분석

The right to know is a new interpretation of constitutional right in which a citizen, who used to be a passive receiver of information, is given the right of active requester of information. The Official Information Disclosure Act(OIDA) was introduced to ensure the people’s right of access to information compiled by public institutions. The main purpose of the study is to empirically evaluate how the OIDA, which has been in effect for 10 years now, as a system, realizes the citizen’s inherent right of free information, and what limitations are revealed. Through a research of the rulings of the Supreme Court on OIDA cases for the past 10 years, it was found that vast majority of cases were the disputes on the legitimacy of non-disclosure decision by public institution based on eight exemptions clause, showing the importance of the clause in OIDA. The Supreme Court has showed a general tendency to value the interest of publicity more than the interest to be closed in these cases, in which the public right to know clashed with other constitutional right or legal interests to be protected from disclosure. Among the cases judged in favor of non-disclosure, personal information was the most common cause. In addition, the ratio of the causes including information related to the protection of administration efficiency and national security was also revealed high. Finally, with a qualitative analysis, this study found that public institutions have tended to interpret exemption rules discretionally at their convenience. This tells some systematic imperfection of the non-disclosure clause. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.