Whether or not to appoint a university professor, etc. whose appointment period has expired falls under the discretionary action of the appointing authority (affirmative), and whether or not the head of a university's refusal to appoint a university professor, etc. or to recommend the appointment of a university professor, etc. on the ground that it has been rejected by the university personnel committee (negative with qualification)

Article 25 of the Public Educational Officials Act, Article 27 of the Administrative Litigation Act

[Plaintiff-Appellant] Plaintiff 1 and 1 other (Law Firm Han-chul, Attorneys Lee Jong-soo et al., Counsel for plaintiff-appellant)

Plaintiff (Law Firm Lee & Lee, Attorneys Song-young et al., Counsel for the plaintiff-appellant)

President of the defendant University (Attorney Lee Jae-sung, Counsel for defendant-appellant)

Seoul High Court Decision 2008Nu6389 decided July 24, 2008

The appeal is dismissed. The costs of appeal are assessed against the plaintiff.

The grounds of appeal are examined.

In the event that university professors, etc. require high-level specialized knowledge, teaching ability, personality, etc. and the appointment authority should decide whether to appoint a university professor whose appointment period expires in consideration of such various circumstances, whether to appoint a university professor again belongs to discretionary action according to the decision of the appointment authority. In particular, Article 25 of the Public Educational Officials Act provides that the head of a university shall obtain consent from the personnel committee of the university in appointing or recommending a university professors, etc. in accordance with the objective criteria is to restrain persons who have appointment authority or appointment-recommendation authority, such as professors, etc. and to secure excellent teachers at the same time by establishing personnel order in accordance with the objective criteria. Thus, the refusal by the head of a university to appoint or recommend a university professor, etc. on the ground that the consent to appointment was rejected by the university personnel committee cannot be deemed to have abused or abused discretion unless there are special circumstances to deem that such refusal has considerably lost the validity of social norms (see Supreme Court Decision 2004Du7818, Sept. 28, 2006).

Examining the reasoning of the judgment below in light of the aforementioned legal principles and records, the court below acknowledged facts as stated in its judgment after compiling the relevant employment evidence, and held that the disposition rejecting the Plaintiff’s reappointment by the university personnel committee that deliberated on whether to re-appoint the Plaintiff cannot be deemed as deviation from and abuse of discretionary power on the ground that there are no special circumstances to deem that it was considerably unfair under social norms, and there is no violation of the rules of evidence or any violation of the rules of evidence as alleged in the grounds of appeal.

Therefore, the appeal is dismissed, and the costs of appeal are assessed against the losing party. It is so decided as per Disposition by the assent of all participating Justices.

Justices Kim Nung-hwan (Presiding Justice)