Background
Our client bought land from a company, suffered losses, and filed a fraud complaint against three people connected to it. In November 2021, the police closed the case without referral for insufficient evidence.
More than two years later, in January 2024, Law Firm Changchun, acting as the complainant's representative, asked the local police chief to disclose each suspect's interrogation record. About a week later, the police refused all three, stating that the records contained the other side's statements that could infringe privacy.
What Was at Stake
The Official Information Disclosure Act permits withholding personal information that may infringe privacy, but it also requires partial disclosure when protected and disclosable parts can be separated. The question was whether refusing each record in its entirety was lawful.
How Changchun Helped
Changchun filed a separate suit for each suspect. The court accepted the following points:
Personal data was excluded at the outset. The request covered only what remained after removing the suspects' and third parties' resident registration numbers, workplaces, addresses, contact details and family information.
The statements concerned business, not private life. The records mainly described the real estate sales business of the suspects' company and the land our client bought, so disclosure posed no real privacy risk.
Outcome
In December 2024, the first-instance court granted all three claims in full, revoked the refusals, and ordered the police chief to bear the costs. All three judgments became final in January 2025.
Even years after a case is closed, a complainant may request the records again. A precisely defined request makes a blanket refusal far easier to overturn. (Outcomes depend on the facts of each case.)