Constitutional Court Refers 'Delayed Statement of Appeal Submission' Case to Full Bench

Yonhap News Agency

Even if the deadline for submitting a statement of appeal has passed, if the statement is submitted before the court’s decision, the appeal cannot be dismissed—this is the legal principle at issue in two petitions now referred to the Constitutional Court’s full bench.

The Constitutional Court announced on May 15 that it has decided to refer to the full bench the cases brought by Company A and Educational Foundation B, both seeking to overturn rulings by the Supreme Court and Suwon High Court, respectively.

The central issue in both cases is whether strictly enforcing the deadline for submitting a statement of appeal under the Civil Procedure Act, thereby dismissing appeals, infringes upon the right to trial.

In the first case, Company A appealed after its claim for the cancellation of a pest control enforcement order was dismissed in the first instance, but the court dismissed the appeal in November last year because the statement of appeal was submitted two days after the extended deadline granted by the court.

Educational Foundation B also received a dismissal of its appeal the day after it submitted the statement of appeal, on the grounds that it failed to submit the statement within the required period in a lawsuit concerning teacher compensation.

The petitioners argue that the court’s decisions to dismiss their appeals, even though the statements of appeal were submitted before the final court decision, violated their right to a fair trial.

This dispute arises from the introduction of the “statement of appeal submission system” under the revised Civil Procedure Act, which came into effect on January 16, 2024. According to Article 402-3, Paragraph 1 of the Act, an appellant must submit a statement of appeal within 40 days from the date of receiving notice of the appellate record. A one-time extension of up to one month is permitted upon request. If the statement is not submitted within the prescribed period, the court must dismiss the appeal by decision.

Currently, in addition to these appeal annulment cases, a constitutional petition challenging the validity of Article 402-3, Paragraph 1 of the Civil Procedure Act itself is also under review by the Constitutional Court’s full bench.

Meanwhile, since the implementation of the appeal annulment petition system, a cumulative total of 679 such cases have been filed, with the full bench having decided to hear five of them, including these two cases.

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