Open Decision Ledger · Constitutional, administrative & state liability
Disclosure Under Article 124(1) Requires an Existing Document
Supreme Court, Aug. 28, 2025, 2024Do11261 (judgment)
No holding summary · checked against points at issue. The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Case name: 폭행·도시및주거환경정비법위반
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
Under Article 124(1) of the former Urban and Housing Environment Renewal Act, must the documents or related materials listed in its items be drawn up and exist in a form that members, landowners or tenants can understand before a disclosure obligation arises, and may an officer of a renewal cooperative be guilty of breaching that provision where such documents were never drawn up?
Holding
Disclosure under Article 124(1) presupposes that the documents or related materials listed in its items have been drawn up and exist in a form that members, landowners or tenants can understand. Where such a document was never drawn up, no disclosure obligation attaches to it, because recognising one would impose an unwritten duty to draft it on the officer; the offence therefore has no room to arise. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal against the acquittals on both counts.
Points at issue, verbatim
구 도시 및 주거환경정비법 제124조 제1항에 따른 공개가 이루어지려면 조합원이나 토지 등 소유자 또는 세입자가 알 수 있는 형태로 위 조항 각 호에 규정된 서류나 관련 자료가 작성되어 존재하여야 하는지 여부(적극) / 위 조항 각 호에 규정된 서류나 관련 자료가 작성되어 존재한 바가 없는 경우, 조합 임원 등에 대한 같은 법 제124조 제1항 위반죄가 성립하는지 여부(소극)
Unofficial English translation
Whether, for disclosure to be made under Article 124 (1) of the former Act on the Improvement of Urban Areas and Residential Environments, the documents or related materials provided for in each subparagraph of that paragraph must be prepared and exist in a form that can be ascertained by members of the association, owners of land, etc., or tenants (affirmative) / Whether the offense of violation of Article 124 (1) of the same Act is established against officers, etc. of the association where the documents or related materials provided for in each subparagraph of that paragraph have never been prepared or existed (negative)
Disposition
Dismissed Stated in the decision
상고를 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
The appeal is dismissed.
Form of the test
Elements stated Stated in the decision
이 조항에 따른 공개가 이루어지려면 조합원이나 토지 등 소유자 또는 세입자가 알 수 있는 형태로 해당 서류 등이 작성되어 존재하여야 하는데
Unofficial English translation
For disclosure to be made under this paragraph, the relevant documents, etc. must be prepared and exist in a form that can be ascertained by members of the association, owners of land, etc., or tenants, and
Factors
- 구 도시 및 주거환경정비법 제124조 제1항에 따른 공개가 이루어지려면
- 조합원이나 토지 등 소유자 또는 세입자가 알 수 있는 형태로
- 위 조항 각 호에 규정된 서류나 관련 자료가 작성되어 존재하여야 하는지 여부(적극)
- 위 조항 각 호에 규정된 서류나 관련 자료가 작성되어 존재한 바가 없는 경우
Unofficial English translation
• For disclosure to be made under Article 124 (1) of the former Act on the Improvement of Urban Areas and Residential Environments,
• in a form that can be ascertained by members of the association, owners of land, etc., or tenants,
• whether the documents or related materials provided for in each subparagraph of that paragraph must be prepared and exist (affirmative)
• where the documents or related materials provided for in each subparagraph of that paragraph have never been prepared or existed,
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2024. 9. 13. 선고 2023도16588 판결(공2024하, 1688)
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court Decision 2023Do16588 decided September 13, 2024 (Gong 2024 Ha, 1688)
Decisions referred to
[1][2] 대법원 2024. 9. 13. 선고 2023도16588 판결(공2024하, 1688) / [1] 대법원 2004. 2. 27. 선고 2003도6535 판결(공2004상, 578), 대법원 2024. 9. 12. 선고 2021도14712 판결(공2024하, 1679)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
If the cooperative's articles or another statute had obliged the chair to record the objector's name and reasons in the minutes, would the absence of that content be a breach of that separate duty even though it is not a breach of the disclosure duty in Article 124(1)?
A later decision that refuses to extend this rule to a duty to draft the minutes, or an amendment to Article 124 of the Urban and Housing Environment Renewal Act after the amendment of 10 June 2022 (Law No. 18941), would require this entry to be read again.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
8 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-24
A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on all 8 axes.
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 Busan District Court, sitting on appeal in its judgment of 27 June 2024 (2023No4015), reversed the first-instance judgment, which had convicted the defendant on both counts, and entered acquittals. On the assault count it held that the defendant's conduct fell under Article 212 of the Criminal Procedure Act and was a justified act excluding wrongfulness. On the urban renewal count it held that reading Article 124(1)(iii) of the former Urban and Housing Environment Renewal Act to require recording the names of those who took part in the vote, whether each voted for or against, and the reasons for that vote, was an expansion the prohibition on expansive interpretation under the principle of legality did not allow.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court found no error in either part. It held that the court below had not misstated the law on a private person's arrest of an offender in flagrante and justified acts, nor departed from the limits of free evaluation by violating logic and experience. On the disclosure count it applied the rule that Article 124(1) separates drafting from disclosure, following Supreme Court Decision 2023Do16588, and confirmed that the defendant had recorded the summary of each item of the minutes of the 96th board meeting and the numbers of those voting for, against and abstaining, then published them within fifteen days under the procedure set out in the cooperative's articles. The Justices unanimously dismissed the appeal.
Distinguishing conditions
- Minutes that do record the objector's name and the reasons for the opposition, so that the document exists but was not published within fifteen days.
- A document required under another item of Article 124(1) that was in fact drawn up, since the rule protects only what does not exist.
- Conduct in the assault count that is not an arrest under Article 212 of the Criminal Procedure Act or that exceeds the bounds of a justified act.
Record verification notes
Establish first what the minutes and related materials recorded at the end of the fifteen-day period, since the Court relied on the absence of any document recording the objector's name and reasons. Then identify the specific item of Article 124(1) the charge rests on and the version of the Act, this decision applying the text before the amendment of 10 June 2022 (Law No. 18941). Separately check whether any rule obliged the officer to draft that content in the first place, and, on the assault count, whether the conduct meets Article 212 of the Criminal Procedure Act, on arrest of a flagrant offender by a private person, and stays within a justified act.
From the official text
Points at issue
[1] 죄형법정주의에 따른 형벌법규 해석 원칙 [2] 구 도시 및 주거환경정비법 제124조 제1항에 따른 공개가 이루어지려면 조합원이나 토지 등 소유자 또는 세입자가 알 수 있는 형태로 위 조항 각 호에 규정된 서류나 관련 자료가 작성되어 존재하여야 하는지 여부(적극) / 위 조항 각 호에 규정된 서류나 관련 자료가 작성되어 존재한 바가 없는 경우, 조합 임원 등에 대한 같은 법 제124조 제1항 위반죄가 성립하는지 여부(소극)
Unofficial English translation
[1] Principles of interpretation of penal statutes under the principle of legality (nullum crimen sine lege) [2] Whether, for disclosure to be made under Article 124 (1) of the former Act on the Improvement of Urban Areas and Residential Environments, the documents or related materials provided for in each subparagraph of that paragraph must be prepared and exist in a form that can be ascertained by members of the association, owners of land, etc., or tenants (affirmative) / Whether the offense of violation of Article 124 (1) of the same Act is established against officers, etc. of the association where the documents or related materials provided for in each subparagraph of that paragraph have never been prepared or existed (negative)
Summary of the holding
The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Order
상고를 기각한다.
Unofficial English translation
The appeal is dismissed.
Provisions referred to
[1] 헌법 제12조 제1항, 형법 제1조 제1항 / [2] 헌법 제12조 제1항, 형법 제1조 제1항, 구 도시 및 주거환경정비법(2022. 6. 10. 법률 제18941호로 개정되기 전의 것) 제124조 제1항, 제138조 제1항 제7호
Read 2026-10-24 · Cross-read 2026-10-24. 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