Supreme Court overturns ruling on disclosure of ex-president's expenses

South Korea's Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling that mandated the disclosure of former President Yoon Suk-yeol's expenses, including those for movie tickets and a dinner. The decision came after the Presidential Secretariat argued that the lawsuit was moot because the relevant records had been transferred to the Presidential Archives following Yoon's impeachment.

The original lawsuit was filed by the Korea Taxpayers Association, which sought information on the costs associated with Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon-hee, attending the movie 'Broker' in June 2022, and a dinner reportedly costing 4.5 million won in May 2022. The Presidential Secretariat had initially refused the disclosure request, citing 'state secrets'.

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The information disclosure system is a system that discloses information held and managed by public institutions as it is, and if the public institution does not hold and manage the information requested for disclosure, there is no legal interest in canceling the refusal of disclosure for that information, absent special circumstances.

Lower courts had sided with the taxpayers' association, ruling that the expenses were not confidential information. However, the Supreme Court, in a decision delivered on June 24 and announced on August 7, sent the case back to the Seoul High Court. The court stated that if the information is no longer held by the defendant agency, a lawsuit seeking disclosure of that information may lose its legal standing.

The Supreme Court's reasoning centered on the principle that information disclosure systems apply to information currently held by public institutions. It noted that Yoon's impeachment in April 2025 and the subsequent inauguration of President Lee Jae-myung led to the transfer of special activity fund details to the Presidential Archives. The court emphasized the need to re-examine whether the plaintiff still possessed a legal interest in seeking disclosure after these events.

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It is necessary to newly examine whether the plaintiff's legal interest in canceling the refusal of disclosure of information has been extinguished due to circumstances after the closing of the oral argument.