Recently, Supreme Court of Korea denied the standing to sue of the area residents in the dispute between nation and area residents(or environmental organizations) related to building a Jeju naval base. According to article 12 of the Administrative Lit...
Recently, Supreme Court of Korea denied the standing to sue of the area residents in the dispute between nation and area residents(or environmental organizations) related to building a Jeju naval base. According to article 12 of the Administrative Litigation Act of Korea, it is required for plantiffs to prove their interests are protected by law, so called ‘standing’, for withdrawal aa authority’s decision. How to define the Standing in environmental administrative litigation in Korea, however, is a controversial issue.
The purpose of this paper is to review the court’s decision on changing of disposition on absolute preservation area in Jeju, and to suggest to extend the scope of the standing to sue in the environment administrative litigation in Korea.
The court ruled that area residents had not legally protected interests but just reflective interests in this case, because the court regarded the authority’s decision lifting the designation as an absolute preservation area as a beneficial one. The court did not recognize the environmental interest of area residents as legally protected interests, even though the Constitution of the Republic of Korea provides people’s environmental rights in article 35.
As administrative acts get more complex and multifaceted, the scope of the standing to sue in environmental administrative litigation should be extended to guarantee the right of access to courts substantially and relief the right and the interests of the third party, and strengthen the supervision of the administrative’s discretion by the judiciary concerning.