Among Legal Disputes Involving Teachers, 71.6% Are Criminal Cases... Acquittals Are About Twice as Many

Criminal Cases Often Involve Child Abuse and Sexual Misconduct
Proposal to Expand Compensation Insurance Coverage and Provide Advance Support
Enforce Through 'Hakgyo Bunjaem Jojeongwi' for Mandatory Compliance

Recently, it has been revealed that over 70% of legal disputes involving teachers are criminal cases. Among these, most pertain to child abuse and sexual misconduct cases, with acquittals being twice as frequent as convictions.

According to the "Analysis of Legal Dispute Cases Involving Teachers and Support Measures by the Education Office" released by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education on the 31st, an analysis of 1,188 legal dispute rulings involving teachers over the past five years found that criminal cases accounted for 71.6%. It was reported that almost all of these cases involved teachers as defendants.

In criminal cases, most involved child abuse and sexual misconduct, while in civil cases, many were damages claims including teachers as defendants. Administrative cases mainly involved incidents handled by school principals as disciplinary authorities before the revision of the School Violence Prevention Act.

Regarding this, the research team analyzed that there are many cases of malicious procedural abuse. According to a survey conducted by the research team targeting 1,770 teachers in Seoul, 51 out of 1,770 respondents reported having experienced legal disputes as parties involved. Notably, among these, cases where teachers won or were acquitted numbered 23, which is twice as many as cases where they lost or were convicted (12 cases).

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The research team pointed out that when legal disputes involving teachers proceed to litigation, the process tends to be prolonged, placing teachers under severe stress. They acknowledged that the Ministry of Education’s current implementation of the "Manual for Protecting Educational Activities," which includes protective measures for affected teachers, financial support, and operation of the Teacher Healing Support Center, is being carried out diligently. However, they diagnosed procedural difficulties in supporting litigation costs, as it requires approval from the Teacher Rights Protection Committee.

Therefore, they suggested the need to expand the coverage of teacher liability insurance while specifying detailed support requirements when legal disputes arise involving teachers. They also added that it is necessary to consider a method of proactively supporting litigation costs first and then recovering or reclaiming them later. Regarding the procedure requiring the Teacher Rights Protection Committee’s approval, they emphasized the need to improve it by establishing a separate review process that does not require the attendance of the opposing party.

Additionally, they stated the necessity to amend the "Teacher Status Act" (Special Act for the Improvement of Teacher Authority and Protection of Educational Activities) to include malicious accusation as an act infringing on educational activities. They also mentioned the need to expand the consultation scope of the Teacher Healing Support Center and the Legal Support Group for initial responses. They proposed measures for the prompt resolution of disputes involving teachers, such as introducing a "School Dispute Mediation Committee" to overcome the limitation of having the principal as the sole applicant and granting it binding decision-making authority.

The research team said, "Legal disputes involving teachers affect their educational activities regardless of the teacher’s fault. From this perspective, to ensure that educational activities proceed normally, it is necessary to promptly resolve and support legal disputes involving teachers to protect educational activities."

The Education Office will announce the final report containing these details on the morning of the 1st at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. The report will be posted on the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education’s website.

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