Top court upholds privacy over right to know

By Park Si-soo

The Supreme Court upheld Thursday a lower court ruling that found two journalists guilty for filing news reports disclosing a bribery link between Samsung Group and political heavyweights based on information secured through illegal wiretapping.

The verdict highlighted that the act of collecting information to shed light on the dark side of the corporate world were justifiable only when the information-gathering works were done within the boundary of the law — even if the information is about apparent corrupt deals involving those in power.

The ruling maintained a suspended jail term imposed on MBC TV reporter Lee Sang-ho and former chief editor of Monthly Chosun magazine Kim Yeon-kwang.

“To run a news report based on private conversations, it must be guaranteed that the disclosure promotes public interest. But this was not the case,” Supreme Court Justice Lee Yong-hoon said.

Five dissenting justices of the 14-member bench agreed that their reporting was justifiable in the broad context of public interest and right to know, but their number fell short of that required to overturn the decision.

The scandal rocked the political world and the country’s largest conglomerate and dates back to July 2005.

An 11-member MBC TV news squad, headed by Lee Sang-ho, exclusively reported that the National Intelligence Service illegally bugged the talks between two Samsung executives and the head of a mass-circulating newspaper in 1997, highlighting a secret bribery chain between Samsung and influential politicians.

MBC ran a total of 17 news clips covering the bugging scandal, later called “Samsung X-file,” between July 21 and 27, 2005, through its prime time news show. Lee said they were based on scores of cassette tapes and related documents from a Korean-American source.

In the chats wiretapped between April and October 1997, then Vice Chairman of Samsung Group Lee Hak-soo and Joong-Ang Ilbo daily Chairman Hong Seok-hyun were discussing how to lobby then presidential candidates Kim Dae-jung and Lee Hoi-chang.

Their talks were also centered on the political environment of the time and key politicians, high-ranking prosecutors and bureaucrats the two were trying to bribe. Hong is a brother-in-law of Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

In the 1997 presidential election, liberal-minded candidate Kim Dae-jung defeated Lee Hoi-chang representing the conservative ruling party to succeed President Kim Young-sam.

Following the disclosure, the prosecution launched a large-scale investigation into those involved in the scandal, including the two journalists and two businessmen.

MBC reporter Lee was indicted on charges of making public the private talk, violating the Communication Privacy Protection Law.

The monthly magazine reporter was prosecuted on charges of running the entire content of the conversations in the magazine following the MBC reports.