Is it illegal or not?
Democratic Party Chairman Kim Han-gil, center in the front row, and its members call for a special parliamentary inquiry on the National Intelligence Service’s illegal involvement in last year’s presidential election at the National Assembly in Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap
Disclosing summit transcripts at center of controversy
By Kang Seung-woo
Whether the transcripts of a 2007 inter-Korean summit should have been kept as confidential president records or released into the public domain is re-emerging as a hot-button issue.
Debate over this comes one day after the National Intelligence Service (NIS) showed a number of confidential documents to some lawmakers of the parliamentary intelligence committee on Thursday causing the ruling Saenuri Party to make a claim that former President Roh Moo-hyun made remarks about nullifying the Northern Limit Line (NLL) to then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
What Saenuri Party lawmakers did can be subject to different legal liabilities depending on whether the transcripts were sealed as classified documents by a former president.
Under law, presidential records such as the minutes of a summit are kept secret for 15 years and can only be made public with two-thirds approval of all lawmakers or if a warrant is issued by a high court judge.
However, if the transcripts are judged to be part of the public record, they only have to receive approval from the head of an organization that owns them.
In February, the prosecution ruled that the inter-Korean minutes belong to the NIS, given that the spy agency drew it up based on a recording of the 2007 summit.
In addition, the transcript disclosure created a further controversy.
According to the public records management act, those who had access to classified records should not reveal what they found.
Suh Sang-kee, chairman of the parliamentary intelligence committee, and others lawmakers allegedly violated this rule by holding a press conference.
Some ruling party members claim that what they disclosed are extracts, not the original documents, so they are not subject to the act.
Meanwhile, Cheong Wa Dae denied on Friday any part in the spy agency’s decision to show the summit transcripts to the lawmakers.
“Is this something that Cheong Wa Dae is supposed to give permission for?” a senior presidential official said.
“NIS officials must have conducted a review before doing that. They must have determined there is no problem (with the disclosure) and the responsibility for that lies with the agency.”
The allegations about what Roh said about the sea border were first raised by a ruling party lawmaker last year ahead of the presidential election. It became an election issue because the opposition's presidential candidate, Moon Jae-in, was Roh’s chief of staff when Roh allegedly made the remarks.