The Constitutional Court in Jongno-gu, Seoul. [Herald DB]
The Constitutional Court in Jongno-gu, Seoul. [Herald DB]

The Ministry of Employment and Labor will move to amend the Act on the Establishment and Operation of Teachers' Unions — commonly known as the Teachers' Union Act — to allow university faculty unions to engage in political activities, following a Constitutional Court ruling that the existing ban is unconstitutional.

The ministry said Friday it "respects the Constitutional Court's decision and will swiftly pursue amendments to the Teachers' Union Act to reflect the intent of the ruling."

The Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that a provision in Article 3 of the Teachers' Union Act prohibiting political activity by university faculty unions violates the Constitution.

The court found that university faculty members enjoy broad legal protections for political activity in their individual capacity — including joining political parties, running for public office and campaigning in elections — yet banning the same activities by unions composed of those faculty members constitutes discrimination without reasonable justification.

The court also held that broadly permitting political activity for individual university faculty members does not in itself directly undermine the political neutrality of education. It added that imposing stricter restrictions on political activity simply because an organization is a union is equally difficult to justify.

However, the court limited the scope of its ruling to university faculty unions, as that was the subject of the case before it, and left intact its previous decisions upholding the ban on political activity by unions of elementary and secondary school teachers. The unconstitutionality finding therefore applies only to the portion of Article 3 of the Teachers' Union Act that pertains to university faculty unions.

Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon said he "respects the Constitutional Court's judgment, which took into account the special legal status of university faculty," and pledged to "swiftly pursue amendments to the Teachers' Union Act in line with the intent of the ruling."


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