Civil Servant Demoted for False Multi-Home Ownership Report... Supreme Court Rules "Disciplinary Action Unfair"

The Supreme Court has ruled that the disciplinary demotion of a public official in Gyeonggi Province for concealing multi-home ownership was unjust.

The Supreme Court's Special 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Cheon Dae-yeop) on the 4th overturned the lower court's ruling against public official A in the demotion cancellation lawsuit (2022Du65092) filed against the Governor of Gyeonggi Province and remanded the case to the Suwon High Court.

[Photo by Beopryul Newspaper]

From December 17 to 18, 2020, Gyeonggi Province conducted a housing ownership survey for candidates for promotion to Grade 4. At that time, the Governor of Gyeonggi Province was Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea.

A, who was a candidate for promotion as a local administrative officer (Grade 5), owned two houses and two officetel pre-sale rights but only reported owning two houses to the housing ownership survey officer. In the personnel evaluation of February 2021, A was promoted to Grade 4, but among the 132 candidates, the 35 who reported multi-home ownership were excluded from promotion. This was because housing ownership status was used as a key personnel evaluation factor. Gyeonggi Province later discovered that A had provided false answers and demoted A back to Grade 5 in August 2021. A then filed a lawsuit.

The first trial found the disciplinary action unjust, but the second trial reversed the decision, ruling the discipline appropriate. The second trial stated, "The grounds for discipline are recognized, and it is difficult to see that discretion was exceeded or abused in the disciplinary measure."

However, the Supreme Court reversed the judgment.

The court stated, "If an appointing authority reflects circumstances unrelated to job performance ability and not corresponding to work performance evaluations as the main reason for evaluation without legal basis, or uses such circumstances as a uniform exclusion criterion or a passive requirement for promotion appointments, it constitutes arbitrary exercise of appointment authority based on subjective will without legal grounds, which violates the constitutional public official system's purpose and principles of meritocracy, as well as provisions of local public official laws, and is therefore impermissible."

It continued, "Reflecting 'multi-home ownership status' without legal basis as a uniform exclusion criterion or passive requirement in the promotion evaluation to Grade 4 public official is essentially equivalent to imposing serious status disadvantages solely for refusal to cooperate with a voluntary investigation, which is inappropriate. If, as the lower court held, A violated the provision that 'no one shall make false or fraudulent statements, entries, certifications, scoring, or reports regarding appointment exams, promotions, appointments, or other personnel records' (Article 43 of the Local Public Officials Act), this presupposes that Gyeonggi Province could reflect the results of the housing ownership survey conducted without legal basis as a main evaluation factor in promotion or personnel records for Grade 4 public officials, which is difficult to accept," the court explained.

Park Su-yeon, Legal News Reporter

※This article is based on content supplied by Law Times.

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