Why Did the Court Deny the Man Who Wanted to Build a Road on the River?

Seoul Central District Court / Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

A man planned to build a road on a river. His land was a so-called 'maengji'?a landlocked plot with no access road. To cultivate landscaping trees there, a road accessible by vehicles was necessary. So, his ingenious idea was to create a road along the nearby river. The origin of this idea was his belief that he had a right of passage over the surrounding land, including the river. However, the court did not recognize his right of passage over the surrounding land. It ruled that building a road on the river was not allowed. What was the reason?

The first to block Mr. A’s plan to build a road on the river was the local government authority. In November 2018, Pyeongchang-gun, Gangwon Province, denied Mr. A’s application for permission to use the river. There were two reasons: lack of consent from adjacent landowners and the risk of obstructing the river’s flow capacity, which could increase the risk of disasters if a bridge were installed in the future.

Unconvinced by Pyeongchang-gun’s decision, Mr. A filed a lawsuit against the state. He argued that "since there is a right of passage over the surrounding land regarding the river, no acts that obstruct passage, such as installing a bridge for forestry purposes, should be allowed." The right of passage over surrounding land refers to the right of a landowner to pass through neighboring land when their own land lacks an access route necessary for its use.

However, the government took a different stance. It argued that the river Mr. A claimed the right of passage over falls under public waters (state-owned seas, rivers, and streams) according to the Public Waters Management Act, and thus cannot be occupied or used without permission from the public waters management authority. The government contended that Mr. A’s right of passage should not be recognized because he did not obtain a permit for occupying public waters.

The Seoul Central District Court Civil Division 15 (Presiding Judge Min Seong-cheol) sided with the government. The court found that Mr. A’s right of passage over the river directly conflicted with the provisions of the Public Waters Management Act regarding the content and scope of such rights. It also ruled that Mr. A failed to meet the Civil Act’s requirement to minimize damage to the owner of the land being passed through when exercising the right of passage.

There was another basis for the court’s decision. The court noted that even if a road were built on the river, access to the public road would require using farm roads that adjacent landowners had established at their own expense. The court stated, "If the right of passage over surrounding land were recognized, it would result in Mr. A continuously using roads on other people’s land, which could not exclude the possibility of infringing on property rights."

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