Court: "High School Teacher Lacks Standing as Plaintiff in Lawsuit to Cancel CSAT Answer Key"

Seoul Administrative Court, Yangjae-dong, Seoul. Photo by Seoul Administrative Court

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] A high school teacher filed an administrative lawsuit claiming that the answers to the Life and Ethics subject in the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) held last year were incorrect, but the case was dismissed. The reason was that the teacher was not recognized as having the legal standing to dispute the answers through the trial.

According to the court on the 27th, the Administrative Division 1 of the Seoul Administrative Court (Chief Judge Kang Dong-hyuk) recently dismissed the lawsuit filed by high school teacher A against the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), demanding the cancellation of the answer decisions for questions 10 and 14 of the 2022 CSAT Life and Ethics subject.

Regarding the two questions that A raised objections to, the Institute had already received objections after the 2022 CSAT last year, but judged that "there was no problem" and confirmed the previously announced answers as they were.

In response, A filed an administrative lawsuit against the Institute in December last year. A, a Life and Ethics teacher, argued that "there is a need to clearly know the correct answers to the questions, so I have the standing as a plaintiff."

However, the court ruled, "It is difficult to see that the plaintiff has a direct and concrete interest protected by the legal basis of this disposition (the answer decision disposition), so there is no plaintiff standing to seek cancellation of the disposition," and dismissed the lawsuit.

Dismissing means concluding the procedure without entering into the substantive examination of the case when the requirements for the lawsuit are not met.

The court explained, "Since the plaintiff is not a test-taker who took the CSAT, even if the correct answers to each question are corrected, the plaintiff's CSAT score will not change, nor will the conditions for university admission change."

Furthermore, the court added, "Even if the plaintiff, as a teacher who teaches Life and Ethics to students, needs to clarify the correct answers to the questions, this is only an indirect and factual interest and cannot be regarded as a legal interest protected under higher education laws and regulations."

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