Exercise of Duty to Act in Constitutional Complaint against Administrative Omission

Abstract

The constitutional complaint's subject matter includes exercise and non-exercise of governmental power. This paper examines the issue of exercising duty to act as the legal prerequisites to constitutional complaints regarding the non-exercise of governmental authority. In the paper, the issue regarding the exercise of the duty to act is divided into the issue of whether to exercise and the timing of exercise. Whether to exercise is not a subject of a mere factual judgment but a normative judgment. Since the judgment criteria of the Constitutional Court on the exercise of duty to act significantly affect the level of the government's exercise of the duty to act afterward, it was considered that the judgment on the exercise of the duty needs to be made practically following the purpose of the system of a constitutional complaint. A greater interest in this paper lies in the issue of the timing of exercise. The kernel of the timing issue was how to judge when the duty to act was exercised after the omission had continued for a considerable period of time and the violation of fundamental rights had already occurred in reality. Firstly it can be said that there is no non-exercise of governmental power. This is the method currently taken by the Constitutional Court. However, this logic has a problem in that it is difficult to identify the fact that the violation of basic rights which has already occurred is concealed. This means that, unlike in the case of the exercise of governmental power, the objective function of the constitutional complaint is weakened in the case of the non-exercise. From the point of view of the applicant, there is also the problem that the possibility of a ruling of unconstitutionality would be reduced. This issue can be treated similarly to the approach that, in a constitutional complaint against the exercise of governmental power, where the act is terminated, justiciable interests should be denied, yet the interests of review can be recognized exceptionally. Finally, from this standpoint, the 2012 Heonma 939 decision was reviewed. It dismissed the request for adjudication, as it was deemed that the prerequisite of the non-existence of governmental power was not met by acknowledging the exercise of the duty to act. However, in this case, the duty to act seems to have been exercised after the omission had continued for a considerable period of time. If that had been the case, it would have been highly probable that the decision to confirm the unconstitutionality was pronounced.