By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
The Ministry of Government Legislation said former President Roh Moo-hyun has no right to reproduce classified government archives, clearing the way for prosecutors to investigate Roh's backlogging of classified state documents.
Roh has insisted the reproduction was based on the law stipulating that a former president has the right to freely access government archives that are compiled during his presidency.
The ministry issued a statement Monday in response to a National Archives of Korea inquiry as to whether the former President's actions were legally justifiable.
It said a former president is entitled to read classified government documents but this does not necessarily mean he can reproduce them.
``The right to look into state documents does not include the right to reproduce them,'' the ministry said in its statement.
Roh had kept at his home in the village of Bongha, Seouth Gyeongsang Province, files that are believed to contain sensitive information such as the operations of the National Intelligence Service and relations with the United States and North Korea.
A series of disputes over the secret files between the former head of state and the current government erupted after the Lee Myung-bak administration became aware that Roh had moved duplicated, confidential information to his home before he left office in February.
The prosecution launched an investigation after the National Archives' repeated calls for their return were rebuffed. Roh returned the hard drives containing the information to the prosecution in July, while asserting his legal right to access the files. He had accessed the data through the ``e-Jiwon'' computer network system set up by his administration.
Some government officials said Roh's storage of the files signals an attempt at making a political comeback. But some critics call the ongoing investigation a form of political revenge.
Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to indict Roh and his former aides.