The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a recommendation to the head of the related government agency to reform the notification procedure and manner so as to avert exposing individuals’ private life at their place of work. The recommendation follows a January 2004 case against Daegu City, Jung-gu District government official Park (49) in which petitioner Shin (32) argued that, “mailing to my work office government papers demanding ‘payment of delinquent fines’ relating to a parking ticket not only violated my right to privacy but also incurred disadvantage at my workplace.”
The petitioner brought forward the case after being subject to disadvantage as a result of the Jung-gu District nonpayment of traffic fines letter being sent to his workplace. During the NHRC investigation, the defendant claimed that the district office planned to seize the petitioner’s wages to collect on the fines in accordance with regional tax law, and in keeping with this, had sent letters demanding payment to the petitioner’s home on several occasions but to no avail. The defendant claimed that only after repeated efforts and as a last resort, a letter demanding that the petitioner’s workplace “cooperate in delivering the letter for the payment of delinquent fines” was sent to his workplace attached to a sealed postcard—demanding payment of delinquent parking fines and advance notice of wage seizure—to be passed on to the petitioner.
However, the NHRC investigation found although the defendant claimed to have already sent numerous letters to the petitioner’s residence, that because they were sent by ordinary post, it was impossible to confirm whether such letters had actually been received. In actuality, the petitioner had moved to another residence, and although the district office could confirm this fact and had mailed those letters to the petitioner’s previous address, the district office did not take this into account. In light of these facts, and confirmation of the fact that the district office did draft official papers that were indiscriminately sent to the petitioner’s workplace, the investigation found that such conduct does violate the right to privacy (protected by article 37: clause 2 of the constitution) without clear nor justifiable cause.
Although the defendant may not have intended harm, when considering that such actions did in fact incur disadvantage to the petitioner at work, this conduct does constitute an overstepping of discretionary authority, the exposure of an individual’s private life before one’s work peers by the government, and damage to an individual’s reputation and credibility; thus, the NHRC investigation found that such conduct does infringe on citizens’ inviolable rights in the private sphere and issued the recommendation to reform the notification process and manner such as to prevent future incidents.
