Open Decision Ledger · Criminal law
Transmitting duty secrets to another official in the course of duty
Supreme Court, Nov. 25, 2021, 2021Do2486 (judgment)
Case name: 공무상비밀누설
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Does a public official who passes on information learned in the course of duty to another official connected with that duty, as part of the execution of the duty, commit a disclosure of official secrets under Article 127 of the Criminal Act?
Holding
In principle it does not. 'Official secret' under Article 127 of the Criminal Act is not limited to matters made secret or classified by statute; it covers matters kept secret for political, military, diplomatic, economic or social needs and matters in which the government, an office or the people have a considerable interest in non-disclosure, but only where the matter is in substance worth protecting as a secret. 'Disclosure' means telling a person who does not yet know the secret; and the offence protects the state functions threatened by a breach of the official's duty of secrecy, not the secret itself. A transfer made in the execution of duty, on the footing of its relevance or necessity, is therefore not a disclosure unless special circumstances make it foreseeable that the receiving official will pass it to a third party unconnected with that duty, or otherwise endanger state functions.
Summary of the holding, verbatim
관련 각 공무원의 지위 및 관계, 직무집행의 목적과 경위, 비밀의 내용과 전달 경위 등 제반 사정에 비추어 비밀을 전달받은 공무원이 이를 그 직무집행과 무관하게 제3자에게 누설할 것으로 예상되는 등 국가기능에 위험이 발생하리라고 볼 만한 특별한 사정이 인정되지 않는 한, 위와 같은 행위가 비밀의 누설에 해당한다고 볼 수 없다.
Unofficial English translation
Unless special circumstances are recognized that give rise to a risk to the functioning of the State, such as where, in light of the positions and relationships of the respective public officials concerned, the purpose and circumstances of the exercise of their duties, the content of the secret and the circumstances under which it was delivered, and all other circumstances, it may be expected that the public official who received the secret will disclose it to a third party in a manner unrelated to the exercise of his or her duties, such conduct cannot be regarded as a disclosure of the secret.
Disposition
Dismissed Stated in the decision
상고를 모두 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
All appeals are dismissed.
Form of the test
Circumstances weighed Stated in the decision
관련 각 공무원의 지위 및 관계, 직무집행의 목적과 경위, 비밀의 내용과 전달 경위 등 제반 사정에 비추어
Unofficial English translation
in light of the positions and relationships of the respective public officials concerned, the purpose and circumstances of the exercise of their duties, the content of the secret and the circumstances under which it was delivered, and all other circumstances,
Factors
- 공무원이 직무상 알게 된 비밀을 그 직무와의 관련성 혹은 필요성에 기하여 해당 직무의 집행과 관련 있는 다른 공무원에게 직무집행의 일환으로 전달한 경우에는
- 관련 각 공무원의 지위 및 관계
- 직무집행의 목적과 경위
- 비밀의 내용과 전달 경위 등 제반 사정에 비추어
- 국가기능에 위험이 발생하리라고 볼 만한 특별한 사정이 인정되지 않는 한
Unofficial English translation
• Where a public official delivers a secret learned in the course of his or her duties, on the basis of the relevance to or the necessity of his or her duties, to another public official involved in the execution of those duties, as part of the exercise of such duties,
• the positions and relationships of the respective public officials concerned,
• the purpose and circumstances of the exercise of their duties,
• in light of the content of the secret and the circumstances under which it was delivered, and all other circumstances,
• unless special circumstances are recognized that give rise to a risk to the functioning of the State
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2007. 6. 14. 선고 2004도5561 판결, 대법원 2018. 2. 13. 선고 2014도11441 판결 등 참조
Unofficial English translation
See, inter alia, Supreme Court Decision 2004Do5561 decided June 14, 2007; Supreme Court Decision 2014Do11441 decided February 13, 2018, etc.
Decisions referred to
대법원 2007. 6. 14. 선고 2004도5561 판결(공2007하, 1108), 대법원 2018. 2. 13. 선고 2014도11441 판결(공2018상, 610)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
When the receiving official is the head of the body that administers the duty, how far does the risk of onward disclosure have to go before the passing on counts as a disclosure?
A later decision that qualifies the rule for passes on outside the line of the duty administration, or a change to Article 127 of the Criminal Act, would require this entry to be read again. A record showing how the receiving official in fact used the information would also raise the question the Court did not decide.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-25
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 7 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 4 (form of the test).
Axis 4 (Form of the test): Primary “Circumstances weighed” vs Independent “Elements stated”
Neither reading finds an explicit burden-of-proof statement in the holding, so the flagged difference likely reflects how each reader inferred an implicit allocation from the special-circumstance exception.
국가기능에 위험이 발생하리라고 볼 만한 특별한 사정이 인정되지 않는 한, 위와 같은 행위가 비밀의 누설에 해당한다고 볼 수 없다.Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The Seoul High Court, in its judgment of 29 January 2021 (2020No531), kept the first-instance acquittal. It held that the information other than part of the investigation data was hard to accept as information obtained in the warrant process, that the defendants had not conspired to obstruct the prosecution of an incumbent judge or to have the investigation data in the warrant file reported to the Supreme Court's Office of Court Administration, and that the report Defendant 1 made was the giving and taking of information between those who carried out court administration and bore a duty of secrecy, needed to consider measures such as reassignment of the judge's caseload or disciplinary action promptly and carefully, before a criminal judgment became final.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court found no error. Reading the appellate reasons against the stated law and the record, it held that the court below had neither misread the facts in breach of the rules of evidence and free evaluation, nor misunderstood 'official secret' and 'disclosure' in the offence in a way that affected the judgment, and dismissed all the appeals on the unanimous opinion of the participating Justices.
Distinguishing conditions
- A transfer made not on the footing of its relevance or necessity to the duty, or not as part of the execution of the duty, since the rule is stated for that kind of passing on.
- A case in which special circumstances show that the receiving official is expected to pass the information to a third party unconnected with the execution of that duty, or otherwise to endanger state functions.
- Information that is not in substance worth protecting as a secret, since the definition of an official secret requires that quality.
Record verification notes
Identify each official who handled the information, their post and their relation to the duty, and then read the purpose and course of the execution of that duty and the content of the information and how it was passed on. Against that record, ask whether the receiving official could be expected to pass it on outside the duty, since that is the special circumstance that takes a passing on out of the rule. Also confirm that the matter is worth protecting as a secret, as the two earlier decisions require.
From the official text
Points at issue
공무상비밀누설죄에서 ‘법령에 의한 직무상 비밀’ 및 ‘누설’의 의미 / 공무상비밀누설죄의 보호법익 / 공무원이 직무상 알게 된 비밀을 그 직무와의 관련성 혹은 필요성에 기하여 해당 직무의 집행과 관련 있는 다른 공무원에게 직무집행의 일환으로 전달한 행위가 비밀의 누설에 해당하는지 여부(원칙적 소극)
Unofficial English translation
The meaning of 'secret in the course of duty under statutes and regulations' and 'disclosure' in the crime of disclosing official secrets / The protected legal interest of the crime of disclosing official secrets / Whether an act by which a public official, on the basis of the relevance to or the necessity of his or her duties, delivers to another public official involved in the execution of those duties a secret learned in the course of his or her duties, as part of the exercise of such duties, constitutes a disclosure of the secret (negative, in principle)
Summary of the holding
형법 제127조는 공무원 또는 공무원이었던 자가 법령에 의한 직무상 비밀을 누설하는 것을 구성요건으로 하고 있는데, 여기서 ‘법령에 의한 직무상 비밀’이란 반드시 법령에 의하여 비밀로 규정되었거나 비밀로 분류 명시된 사항에 한하지 아니하고, 정치, 군사, 외교, 경제, 사회적 필요에 따라 비밀로 된 사항은 물론 정부나 공무소 또는 국민이 객관적, 일반적인 입장에서 외부에 알려지지 않는 것에 상당한 이익이 있는 사항도 포함하나, 실질적으로 그것을 비밀로서 보호할 가치가 있다고 인정할 수 있는 것이어야 한다. 그리고 ‘누설’이란 비밀을 아직 모르는 다른 사람에게 임의로 알려주는 행위를 의미한다. 한편 공무상비밀누설죄는 공무상 비밀 그 자체를 보호하는 것이 아니라 공무원의 비밀엄수의무의 침해에 의하여 위험하게 되는 이익, 즉 비밀누설에 의하여 위협받는 국가의 기능을 보호하기 위한 것이다. 그러므로 공무원이 직무상 알게 된 비밀을 그 직무와의 관련성 혹은 필요성에 기하여 해당 직무의 집행과 관련 있는 다른 공무원에게 직무집행의 일환으로 전달한 경우에는, 관련 각 공무원의 지위 및 관계, 직무집행의 목적과 경위, 비밀의 내용과 전달 경위 등 제반 사정에 비추어 비밀을 전달받은 공무원이 이를 그 직무집행과 무관하게 제3자에게 누설할 것으로 예상되는 등 국가기능에 위험이 발생하리라고 볼 만한 특별한 사정이 인정되지 않는 한, 위와 같은 행위가 비밀의 누설에 해당한다고 볼 수 없다.
Order
상고를 모두 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
All appeals are dismissed.
Provisions referred to
형법 제127조
Read 2026-10-25 · Cross-read 2026-10-25. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
Every entry is published only after all quotes have been matched character by character against the official text, and audited by an independent second reading from a different model family across all eight axes. Both agreed axes and text-grounded interpretive divergences are recorded openly. The ledger is a research record, not an assessment of the court or advice on any matter.
Back to the ledger