[1] Whether the act of selecting the location of an innovative city to be constructed through the procedures stipulated by the Special Act on Balanced National Development, etc. constitutes an administrative disposition subject to appeal litigation (negative)

[2] Whether there is a legal interest in dispute over the act of selecting a location of an innovation city to be constructed through the procedures under the Special Act on Balanced National Development for employees of public agencies relocating to provinces (negative)

[1] The act of the Metropolitan City Mayor's selection of the location of an innovation city to be constructed in the Metropolitan City according to the procedure stipulated by the Special Act on Balanced National Development, etc. is a designation of an innovation city under the name of the innovation city between the representatives of the agencies to be transferred and the Metropolitan City Mayor for the purpose of balanced national development. It does not lead to a direct change in the specific rights and duties of employees belonging to the agencies to be transferred to that Metropolitan City, nor directly and individually, or the act of selecting the location itself does not directly and specifically regulate the rights and duties of residents by the act of selecting the innovation city. Thus, the above act of the Metropolitan City Mayor cannot be viewed as an administrative disposition.

[2] The Special Act on Balanced National Development, etc. only stipulates that various types of assistance may be provided to the employees of public institutions subject to relocation, and in particular, it does not directly impose obligations on the employees of agencies subject to relocation or provide rights and interests to the employees of the agencies subject to relocation. Thus, it cannot be deemed that the same Act itself directly, individually, and specifically affects the employees of the agencies subject to relocation, or grants rights and interests to them. Since the act of selecting the locations of innovative cities by the Metropolitan City Mayor itself does not directly and individually regulate the rights and obligations of the said employees, it cannot be deemed that the said employees have a legal interest in dispute over the act of

[1] Articles 1, 3, 4(2), and 18 of the Special Act on Balanced National Development; Article 15 of the Enforcement Decree of the Special Act on Balanced National Development; Article 2 of the Administrative Litigation Act / [2] Articles 1, 3, 4(2), and 18 of the Special Act on Balanced National Development; Article 15 of the Enforcement Decree of the Special Act on Balanced National Development; Article 12 of the Administrative Litigation Act

Plaintiff 1 and five others (Law Firm citizen, Attorneys Kang Kang-soo et al., Counsel for the plaintiff-appellant)

Ulsan Metropolitan City Mayor (Law Firm Won, Attorneys Gyeong-hwan et al., Counsel for the plaintiff-appellant)

September 6, 2006

1. All of the instant lawsuits are dismissed.

2. The costs of lawsuit are assessed against the plaintiffs.

(State) On December 19, 2005, the Defendant confirmed that a disposition that determined the amount of 840,000 square meters in the Jung-gu, Ulsan Metropolitan City as the final site of the innovation city is null and void.

(Preliminary Claim) The defendant revoked on December 19, 2005 the disposition that determined the amount of 840,000 square meters in the Jung-gu Seoul Metropolitan City on December 19, 2005 as the final site of the innovation city.

1. Basic facts

A. The Government enacted the Special Act on Balanced National Development (hereinafter “Special Act on Balanced National Development”) by Act No. 7061 on January 16, 2004, based on the purpose of “the purpose of this Act is to resolve regional imbalance and promote self-reliance decentralization through development suitable for regional innovation and characteristics.”

B. The Act requires the Government to establish a balanced national development plan for balanced national development, and requires the State and local governments to select and foster each regional strategic industry, develop local universities and colleges, promote regional science and technology, promote regional informatization, promote regional culture and tourism, promote regional economy, and revitalize regional economy. Meanwhile, the Act stipulates that the Government shall implement the policies for relocation of public institutions to relocate public institutions to Ulsan Metropolitan area by step among the public institutions located in the Seoul Metropolitan Area for the purpose of controlling the concentration of public institutions and developing regional characteristics (Article 18 of the Act is as shown in annexed Table 1). In accordance with the policies of public institutions relocating to Ulsan Metropolitan Area on June 24, 2005, the Government announced 11 public institutions to be transferred to Ulsan Metropolitan City as the Korea National Oil Corporation, Energy Management Corporation, Korea Energy and Economy Institute, Korea Islands Development Institute, Human Resources Development Corporation, Korea Workers' Labor Welfare Corporation, Industrial Accident Compensation Center, Industrial Safety Center, Korea Industrial Safety Agency, Korea Industrial Safety Agency, National Disaster Prevention Agency, and driver's license examination management institute.

C. After that, the representatives of 11 institutions such as the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Labor, the Office for Government Policy Coordination, the National Police Agency, the Ulsan Metropolitan City, and the Energy Management Corporation (hereinafter collectively referred to as “transfer-related institutions”) shall actively cooperate to facilitate the relocation of public institutions including the construction of innovation cities. ② The Defendant constructed one innovation city (district) on May 27, 2005 in accordance with the Framework Agreement on Relocation of Public Institutions between the Government and the City/Do, and transfers the innovation city to Ulsan Metropolitan City in principle. ③ The specific location of innovation cities in Ulsan Metropolitan City shall be completed by the end of September 2005 after gathering opinions of relocating institutions in accordance with the standards and principles presented by the Government. ④ The Government and Ulsan Metropolitan City actively announced the implementation of the Framework Agreement on the Relocation of Public Institutions, the implementation of the relocation-related institutions, the implementation of the relocation-related measures, the implementation of the relocation-related public institutions, the implementation of the relocation-related public institutions, the implementation of the relocation-related projects, and the implementation of the public educational environment.

D. The Ministry of Construction and Transportation (hereinafter “the Construction and Transportation”) on July 27, 2005, pursuant to the delegation of Article 18 of the Act and Article 15 of the Enforcement Decree of the Act, prepared “the Guidelines for Selection of Innovation City Sites” (hereinafter “the Guidelines”) with the contents that set the principles, standards, and procedures for the selection of the location of innovation cities, and instructed the same to each Mayor/Do Governor, and the main contents are as shown in attached Table 2.

E. The defendant, by September 15, 2005, constituted 20 sites selection committee (one of the 10 persons shall be recommended by the relocating Agency Council) and commissioned 11 committee members as the chairperson of the Ulsan Industrial Technology Institute. The location selection committee was held on September 15, 2005 at the first meeting, which was held on September 15, 2005, planned to request the Ulsan Development Institute to select a preliminary candidate site, and decided to recommend a candidate site on a scale of 30 to 50,000 square meters. The detailed evaluation criteria for candidate site were prepared by the Ulsan Development Institute in order to prepare materials from the site and on-site and on-the-spot, and the evaluation method was made in writing under the Ulsan Development Institute Act.

F. Accordingly, the Ulsan Power Development Institute selected ten preliminary candidates, such as the Ulsan-gu Postal Zone, the Ulsan-gu Gyeongnam-gun, the Ulsan-gun, the Samnam-gun, the Samnam-gun, and the Ulsan-gun, and the Nam-gu two king-gun, sent the results thereof to the council of relocating Agencies, and submitted the opinions of the relocating Agency Council. The relocating Agency Council sent the opinions of the agencies prior to October 21, 2005. The Korea Labor Welfare Corporation shall consider the opinion that “the accessibility to the inter-city transportation network, such as the high-speed rail and the expressway, should be considered top priority, because the traffic links between the multi-functional administrative city and the Seoul Metropolitan area are important.” The Energy and Economy Institute also presented the opinion that “the accessibility to the transportation network, residential environment, etc., including the improved research environment, the high-speed rail and the expressway, etc., to the maximum extent possible, should be considered as an important element, such as the connection with the high-speed rail or the expressway.”

G. Meanwhile, in relation to the location selection committee, the prior institution council requested the trade union, etc. of the previous institution to withhold the decision until the information is verified because the fair and objective location selection data of the location selection committee were provided. The location selection committee decided on October 26, 2005 and the second meeting held on October 26, 2005 to postpone the evaluation schedule in the event of a problem through the review of site answers and evaluation data. On October 26, 2005, the prior institution council conducted on-site answers on 7 out of the preliminary candidate site and 3 on 27 October 27, 2007.

H. After that, on November 2, 2005, the seven representative of a trade union of the previous target institution visited Ulsan-do and sought an explanation of the preliminary candidate site, and requested to prepare more detailed evaluation data on the dispatch suspension district in North-gu, Jung-gu, the postal district in the middle-gu, the Ulsan-gun, and the new zone in Ulsan-gun. Accordingly, the defendant additionally prepared an evaluation data on the preliminary candidate site in the above three areas and explained the additional evaluation data from the meeting room of the Energy Management Corporation at the meeting room of the Korea Energy Management Corporation, five representatives of the trade union of the previous target institution, employees of the previous target institution, etc. at the meeting room of the Energy Management Corporation, and submitted such data to the Location Selection Committee.

(i) On November 2, 2005, the Location Selection Committee made an evaluation of the preliminary candidates for each member of the Committee, with the following contents: “In the presence of 17 members of the Committee, it shall be assessed by the absolute evaluation method for each candidate, allocated points by the allocation method in the new issuance guidelines; the performance sharing scheme of innovation cities and the support items of local governments shall be assessed as “ordinary”; the performance sharing scheme of innovation cities and 10 preliminary candidates shall be assessed as “ordinary”; in the case of Dong branch, it shall be assessed as to the possibility of development as innovation cities, adequacy of urban development, and the order of priority for shared growth in the region; and then, it shall be assessed as to the preliminary candidates for each member of the Committee. As a result, the number of members of the Ulsan-gu Postal Zone was the highest point in the points calculated by the absolute evaluation method as above; the head of the committee selected for this purpose was announced on December 1, 2005 at the Ulsan Metropolitan City Press Center, and submitted related data to Ulsan Metropolitan City.

B. On December 6, 2005, the defendant issued a reply to the purport that "no opinion has been made" as to the selection of a postal district on December 6, 2005, and that 830,000,000,000,000,000,000 won was finally selected as the location of innovative cities on the same day.

(k) The Plaintiffs are employees of the previous institutions subject to the transfer, and Plaintiff 1 is the Korea Workers’ Welfare Service, Plaintiff 1 is the Industrial Accident Medical Institute, Plaintiff Lee Sung-sung, the Energy Management Institute, Plaintiff Kim Sung-soo, the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency, and the Plaintiff Lee Jong-soo is the chairperson of each trade union of the Human Resources Development

[Reasons for Recognition: Facts without dispute, Gap evidence 7, Eul evidence 1, 2, Eul evidence 3, and Eul evidence 4-1 to 3, Eul evidence 5, 6, Eul evidence 7-1, 2, Eul evidence 11, the purport of the whole pleadings]

2. Whether the lawsuit of this case is lawful

A. The parties' assertion

Prior to the assertion on the merits, the defendant asserts that the designation of the postal administration zone as the location of the innovative city is not a disposition subject to the administrative litigation, and that the lawsuit in this case should be dismissed because there is no legal interest to dispute against the plaintiffs who are the representative of the trade union subject to transfer

As to this, the plaintiffs are directly regulated the rights or obligations of residents of an innovation city site selection, such as (i) designation of land transaction permission zone or designation of land speculation zone, (ii) designation of an innovation city site and imposition of measures such as restriction on permission for development activities, etc. for a certain period of time after the designation of such zone or surrounding area as an administrative measure to prevent speculation, (iii) designation of an innovation city site and (iv) designation of an innovation city site directly regulates the rights or obligations of residents of the relevant area; and (iv) employees of the relocating institutions including the plaintiffs, etc. to move to a public institution under the Act provide that serious decline in working conditions, including rapid change in working conditions, such as change of place of work to a region, etc., the right to pursue happiness guaranteed in the Constitution, restriction on freedom of occupation selection, and (iv) designation of a land speculation zone, and (v) designation of an innovation city, and (v) designation of an innovation city for a certain period of time to prevent environmental pollution, and that the government-invested institutions and employees of the relocating institutions should be able to fully establish and resolve with the government-invested institutions and labor union.

B. Whether the act of selecting the location of an innovation city is an administrative disposition subject to revocation litigation

(1) Article 2 Subparag. 1 of the Administrative Litigation Act provides, “The exercise of public authority or its refusal and other equivalent administrative actions, as an enforcement of law with respect to specific facts by an administrative agency,” and generally, “an act of an administrative agency, as an act under public law, which establishes a right with respect to a specific matter, issues an order, and gives rise to other legal effects, etc., which shall be directly related to the rights and obligations of the people,” and in itself, it is interpreted that the act is not a direct change in the specific rights and obligations of the people, but a general, abstract statute or internal and internal business plan, and its realization merely result in a direct change in the specific rights and obligations of the people.”

On the other hand, whether an act of a certain administrative agency constitutes an administrative disposition subject to an administrative litigation should be judged for the purpose of the administrative litigation system or the function of protecting the rights of the people by the judicial power in addition to the nature and effect of the act (see Supreme Court Decision 82Nu370 delivered on February 14, 198, etc.).

(2) The purpose of this Act is to “contribut to the construction of a society where the nation lives well in a fluent manner by resolving regional imbalance and promoting the decentralization of self-reliance by developing suitable regional innovation and characteristics” (see Article 1), that is, various measures to achieve a macro-national policy called balanced national development such as the establishment and activation of regional innovation systems, fostering of regional strategic industries, promotion of regional science and technology, promotion of regional informatization and information and communication, promotion of regional informatization, promotion of regional culture and tourism, promotion of regional economy such as revitalization of regional culture and tourism, promotion of regional financing, promotion of development of development of underdeveloped areas and agricultural, fishing and fishing and fishing villages, etc. In order to realize such individual measures, the government delegates the establishment of detailed policies to the government, etc. through the Enforcement Decree, and upon delegation of the Act and the Enforcement Decree of this Act, the government, the representative of agencies to be transferred to Ulsan Metropolitan City and the defendant finally concluded a basic agreement on site transfer to the government and the head of the agency and the head of the Si/Gun/Gu to which the agencies to be transferred to the government and the innovation zone should be determined within the following guidelines.

As seen earlier, the Act or the Enforcement Decree of the Act only provides for the support of the employees of the agencies subject to relocation. It does not specifically regulate or protect the rights and duties of the employees, etc. of the agencies subject to relocation to Ulsan Metropolitan City, which is determined by the Act itself or related laws and regulations, separately. Therefore, the Defendant’s act of selecting innovative cities to be constructed in Ulsan Metropolitan City as postal zone is merely designating the areas to be constructed as innovative cities in Ulsan Metropolitan City for the purpose of balanced national development with the representatives of the agencies subject to relocation. As such, the Defendant’s act of designating the innovation zone as an innovation zone in Ulsan Metropolitan City is merely a mere act that directly or individually causes changes in the specific rights and duties of the Plaintiffs belonging to the agencies subject to relocation to Ulsan Metropolitan City by the Act or relevant regulations, or that the Plaintiffs’ act of designating the innovation zone as an innovation zone cannot be deemed to be an act that directly or indirectly gives to the Plaintiffs or bears the duty to be located in the new urban zone in terms of economic disadvantage before and after the designation of the new urban zone as an innovation zone.

C. Whether the plaintiffs have legal interest in the above selection act

(1) In light of the fact that an act of which the defendant selected as the location of an innovative city is a disposition subject to an administrative litigation, there is a legal interest to file an administrative litigation. Such legal interest refers to a case where there is a direct, individual, and specific interest protected by the pertinent disposition-based laws and regulations and relevant laws and regulations, and where there is a general, indirect, and abstract interest commonly held by the general public as a result of public interest protection, there is no legal interest protected by law (see, e.g., Supreme Court en banc Decision 2006Du330, Mar. 16, 2006).

(2) The employees of an institution subject to relocation due to the relocation of a public institution under the Act may, regardless of their own intent, change their base of livelihood to a region to which the institution subject to relocation will be relocated pursuant to the policies to achieve a national balanced development, regardless of its purpose, or, if so, change their families’ base of living and the workplace of employees of the institution subject to relocation. It is sufficiently anticipated that the public institution will suffer disadvantages due to the relocation of the institution to provincial areas, such as housing problems, education problems for children, enjoyment of cultural benefits in non-metropolitan areas relatively poor compared to the Seoul Metropolitan area. Article 18(4) of the Act provides that "the State and a local government may provide assistance to the public institution and its employees for the relocation of a public institution or for the improvement of their living environment, such as the relocation of a public institution and the improvement of their living environment," and Article 15(2) of the Enforcement Decree of the Act provides that "the Minister of Construction and Transportation shall provide the government and its employees with assistance to the relocation of the institution subject to relocation to a local area to the maximum extent possible."

(3) However, the law, etc., which is the basis for the defendant's act, provides that various types of assistance can be provided to the employees of the relocating target institution as above, and specifically imposes obligations on the employees of the relocating target institution and does not provide for the contents that grant rights. Thus, the law itself does not directly, individually, and specifically affect the interests of the plaintiffs, who are employees of the previous target institution, or grant rights and benefits to them. Meanwhile, the defendant's act that the postal administration district selects the location of the innovation city does not directly and individually regulate the rights and obligations of the plaintiffs. Thus, even if the rights protected by the Constitution, such as the right to pursue happiness, freedom of occupation, and prohibition of disadvantageous change of working conditions, as alleged by the defendant's act, are limited or disadvantaged to a certain degree or disadvantage, such restriction or disadvantage is merely an indirect or general effect due to the result of the pursuit of public interest, which is the balanced development between the regions oriented by the law. The plaintiffs' participation in the selection process and preparation of an agreement between the affiliated agency, while receiving necessary information from the selection committee, and presented necessary opinions to the committee.

(4) Ultimately, the defendant's act of selecting the postal administration district as the location of an innovative city is not a disposition subject to administrative litigation, and it is not a legal interest in dispute against the plaintiffs.

3. Conclusion

Therefore, the plaintiffs' lawsuit of this case is unlawful and dismissed in its entirety, and it is so decided as per Disposition.

Judges Go Jong-ju (Presiding Judge) Kim Jong-sung's teaching resources