Administrative court rules against residents who quit over medical school expansion

Medical staff move through a large hospital in Seoul. [Yonhap]
Medical staff move through a large hospital in Seoul. [Yonhap]

A Seoul court has dismissed an administrative lawsuit filed by resigned medical residents who challenged the Ministry of National Defense's decision to classify them as "non-selected active-duty personnel" and place them on a military service waiting list. The court ruled that the specific ministry action the plaintiffs sought to overturn was not subject to administrative litigation.

According to legal sources Sunday, the First Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court, presided over by Chief Judge Yang Sang-yun, recently dismissed the case brought by six plaintiffs, identified only as A and others, who sued the defense minister seeking cancellation of the classification. A dismissal closes a case without ruling on its merits on the grounds that the lawsuit does not meet the procedural requirements for filing.

According to facts established by the court, the plaintiffs had been working as residents at training hospitals when the government announced its policy to expand medical school enrollment. They submitted resignations, which the hospitals accepted after the Ministry of Health and Welfare lifted its order prohibiting training hospitals from processing mass resignation letters from residents.

Similar scenes played out across the country, triggering an unprecedented wave of mass resignations among residents and causing the number of people subject to military service to surge.

In response, the Defense Ministry revised its directive on the selection and enlistment of medical and veterinary officers in February last year, classifying the resigned residents as non-selected active-duty personnel and requiring them to await enlistment. The ministry said it intended to select them sequentially as military doctors or public health doctors over a four-year period.

The plaintiffs challenged the move, filing suit to cancel the ministry's notification to the Military Manpower Administration — a document containing the computerized classification results by service type and branch for medical officer candidates and applicants — which listed them as non-selected active-duty personnel.

The court, however, ruled that the notification was not subject to administrative litigation. "The classification notification in this case is no more than an internal act between administrative agencies, in which the Defense Ministry classifies into selected and non-selected active-duty personnel those eligible for selection as active-duty medical officers for the given year — as reported by the Military Manpower Administration — taking into account the required military manpower, and then notifies the Military Manpower Administration of the results," the court said.

The court also held that "the classification notification cannot be seen as directly granting selected active-duty personnel the right to serve as active-duty medical officers, nor as directly altering the rights and obligations of the plaintiffs or impeding the exercise of their rights."


yg@heraldcorp.com