The Supreme Court has ruled that it may be a justifiable act for a lawyer to submit another person's financial and income information, obtained in a civil lawsuit, as evidence in a related case.
On the 12th, according to legal sources, the Supreme Court's First Division (Presiding Justice Ma Yong-ju) overturned a lower court ruling that had suspended the sentence of Attorney A, who was indicted on charges of violating the Real Name Financial Transactions Act and the Personal Information Protection Act, and sent the case back to the Seoul Central District Court.
A is accused of obtaining the plaintiff's financial and income information learned while representing the defendants in a civil lawsuit in Jan. 2023 and submitting it as evidence in another trial involving the same facts.
The defendants represented by A were each sued in 2022 by two plaintiffs for unpaid wages and severance pay. Representing both lawsuits simultaneously, A cross-used each plaintiff's account transaction history and income amount certification information.
The method was to submit the first case plaintiff's information to the bench in the second case, and the second case plaintiff's information to the bench in the first case.
The issue was whether this conduct fell under "justifiable act" in Article 20 of the Criminal Act. The first and second trial courts found A guilty. They said it could not be deemed a justifiable act because A could have obtained the materials through lawful procedures, such as repeatedly applying for production orders from each bench.
However, considering that the information was used only for the purpose of submitting evidence in the related civil cases and that no secondary harm occurred, the courts maintained the suspension of sentence.
The Supreme Court, by contrast, overturned the lower court's decision. It found that while the first and second trial courts were correct in determining that A's conduct fell under acts prohibited by the Real Name Financial Transactions Act and the Personal Information Protection Act, their conclusion that it did not constitute a justifiable act was difficult to accept.
The bench said, "The main issues, facts, and evidence in the two civil cases overlapped, and it appears A needed to submit the plaintiffs' transaction histories and income amount certifications as evidence to refute the plaintiffs' identical claims."
It added that it is difficult to view the personal information submitted by A as "sensitive information" that is likely to significantly invade private life, and, considering that the recipient was a state institution—the court—it is hard to say that harm occurred beyond what is socially acceptable.