Residents Opposing 'Singil Oncheon Station' Name Change... Court Dismisses Case Citing No Harm to Interests

Court: "Difficult to See Direct Impact on Rights and Duties of Local Residents"

The court dismissed an administrative lawsuit filed to cancel the government's decision to change the name of 'Singil Oncheon Station' on Seoul Metropolitan Subway Line 4.

The Administrative Court of Seoul, Administrative Division 2 (Presiding Judge Shin Myung-hee) announced on the 4th that it dismissed the lawsuit filed by residents near Singil Oncheon Station against the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport seeking to cancel the station name change decision. Dismissal means ending the trial without examining the case when the lawsuit does not meet the requirements or is not subject to judgment.

Singil Oncheon Station, located in Singil-dong, Danwon-gu, Ansan-si, Gyeonggi Province, opened under that name in 2000 when the terminus of Subway Line 4 was extended to Oido Station. The name was given as a regional specialty because hot spring water was discovered nearby in the 1980s, but the final cancellation and invalidation of the hot spring discovery report occurred in 2020.

Accordingly, Ansan City requested the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to change the station name to 'Neunggil Station' in 2020, and after review by the Station Name Deliberation Committee in January 2021, the request was accepted. Then, a total of 12 people, including three descendants who claimed to have inherited the rights to the hot spring discovery and residents whose apartment names included Singil Oncheon Station, filed an administrative lawsuit seeking to cancel the station name change.

However, the court ruled that the residents and others could not be considered to have suffered individual and direct legal harm from the station name change, and therefore were not qualified as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The court stated, "The station name change is intended for the public interest to systematically manage and utilize public facilities, so it is difficult to see that it directly affects the rights and obligations of local residents or related parties," and "It cannot be considered that the plaintiffs' legal interests were infringed, and any disadvantage is only an indirect, factual, or economic interest."

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