Court Suspends Effectiveness of Quarantine Pass for Hagwon, Reading Rooms, and Study Cafes (Update)

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] The court has put a brake on the government's quarantine pass (vaccine certificate and negative test confirmation) measures.

On the 4th, the Seoul Administrative Court Administrative Division 8 (Chief Judge Lee Jonghwan) partially accepted the injunction (suspension of effect) application filed by the National Parents' Association Federation against the Director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and the Minister of Health and Welfare.

Earlier, on the 17th of last month, they filed a cancellation lawsuit against the quarantine pass measures along with the injunction application, arguing that "clinical trials for adolescent vaccination have not been completed and verified, yet adolescent vaccination has been effectively made mandatory, infringing on adolescents' bodily freedom, general freedom of action, right to learn, and parents' right to educate their children."

On this day, the court announced that it would suspend the effect of including academies, reading rooms, and study cafes as facilities mandatorily subject to the quarantine pass among the follow-up measures of the special quarantine measures announced by the Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 3rd of last month until the main case verdict is delivered.

The court stated, "Encouraging voluntary vaccination to control the rate of severe cases is the minimally invasive measure that the quarantine authorities should prioritize," and added, "Even under the current quarantine guidelines, to use academies and reading rooms, users must in principle continue to wear masks during usage hours, applying basic quarantine rules to prevent COVID-19 infection, and operators are expected to make considerable efforts to comply with such quarantine rules."

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