Gov’t ordered to disclose translation errors in U.S. FTA
Yonhap News, Seoul
Gov’t ordered to disclose translation errors in U.S. FTA
By Park Boram
2 December 2011
SEOUL, Dec. 2 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s foreign ministry was ordered on Friday to make public its correction of errors made in translating the country’s English-based free trade agreement (FTA) with the U.S. into the local language, taking side with a liberal lawyers’ group.
Lawyers for a Democratic Society, a gathering of left-leaning private-practice lawyers, requested that the Seoul Administrative Court deliver the order after they were denied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in June a list of errata for the renewed Korean translation of the agreement.
"The transparent announcement of what has been revised in the pact can be of enormous public interest in helping form social consensus on the KORUS FTA," Judge Lee In-hyeong said.
The two countries signed the trade pact in 2007, which was first converted to the Korean language for local use that year and presented to the National Assembly one year later. But about 300 translation errors that were found in the initial publication, including mis-spellings, discrepancies and simple mistranslations, caused the ministry to pull it from the parliament and issue a revised version.
The lawyers’ association demanded a list of errors for the pact’s new 1,300-page version, but the ministry refused, only making a revised copy public.
Withholding the list violates the country’s duty to allow access to public information, the association said when it filed the suit.
The ministry had insisted that such a move can severely hurt South Korea’s national interest as it can place a hurdle in the U.S. ratification of the pact. It can also unfairly expose the country’s negotiation strategies and tarnish the country’s external creditworthiness, the ministry had said as it refused to release it.
"We welcome the ruling. The country’s railroading of the FTA (by the ruling party) even without making the translation errors known is highly blamable," said Song Ki-ho, a lawyer of the association.
The revised version of the trade agreement was passed by the National Assembly last week, despite liberal parties’ full opposition, about one month after the U.S. parliament ratified the bill.
