Constitutional Court Rules "Water Use Charge Imposition Under Hangang Watershed Act Provisions Constitutional"

Constitutional Court Grand Bench./Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] The Constitutional Court has ruled that the legal provision imposing a charge based on water usage on the final consumers using tap water does not violate the Constitution.

The Constitutional Court announced on the 2nd that in the constitutional review case filed by Seoul citizen A and others, who argued that the part concerning "final consumers who receive purified water drawn from public water bodies" in Article 19, Paragraph 1 (main text) and Paragraph 5 of the "Act on the Improvement of Water Quality and Resident Support in the Han River Basin (Han River Basin Act)" regulating the Han River water usage charge violated the principles of prohibition of excessive delegation and prohibition of excessiveness, infringed property rights, and violated the principle of equality, the court decided by 8 (constitutional) to 1 (unconstitutional) votes that the provisions are constitutional.

A and others claimed that the relevant legal provisions unconditionally delegated the standards for calculating and imposing the charge to subordinate laws and imposed excessive fees, making them unconstitutional.

The Han River water usage charge system was introduced in 1999 by the Ministry of Environment and five cities/provinces in the Han River basin?Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi, Chungbuk, and Gangwon?to secure funds for improving the water quality of Paldang Lake.

Although more than 90% of the population pays this charge and it is considered a quasi-tax, it has been criticized for allowing a small committee to easily decide on increases because the calculation and imposition standards are stipulated in subordinate laws.

However, the Constitutional Court judged that "the relevant provisions specify that the water usage charge is calculated in proportion to the water usage of the final consumer, making it easy to predict that the imposition rate will be within the necessary range for fund formation," and thus it cannot be seen as violating the principle of prohibition of excessive delegation.

Furthermore, the court stated, "The imposition of the water usage charge is an appropriate means to achieve the public task of improving the water quality of the Han River and cannot be considered to infringe property rights in violation of the principle of prohibition of excessiveness."

Since the payers of the water usage charge benefit from the "water quality improvement," the court held that the imposition rate cannot be considered excessive.

Regarding the claim by A and others that the principle of equality was violated, the Constitutional Court also ruled that "since the imposition of the water usage charge meets constitutional justification requirements, the legislator's choice cannot be seen as manifestly unreasonable."

Meanwhile, Justice Lee Seon-ae dissented, arguing that it is difficult to predict how much the water usage charge will increase in the future, and that leaving the details related to the imposition of the charge entirely to administrative discretion is tantamount to violating the principle of prohibition of excessive delegation.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.