Constitutional Court Dismisses Constitutional Complaint on Deployment of Military Substitute Workers During Strike

by Choi Taewon

Published 29 Apr.2026 17:05(KST)

"Subsidiarity Requirement Not Met"

The Constitutional Court dismissed a constitutional complaint filed against the government's decision to deploy military personnel as substitute workers during the 2019 railway strike.

Constitutional Court of Korea, Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

On April 29, at the Constitutional Court in Jongno-gu, Seoul, the court rendered its decision regarding the case filed by the Korean Railway Workers' Union (KRWU) seeking a constitutional review of the deployment of military substitute personnel during the strike period. The court reached a 6 (dismissal) to 3 (acceptance) decision to dismiss the case.

Six justices expressed the opinion to dismiss, stating either that the complainants had not exhausted all other legal remedies or that their interest in the protection of rights had lapsed. They concluded that the "requirement of subsidiarity" had not been met.

Justices Kim Hyeongdu, Jeong Jeongmi, and Jeong Gyesun held that the decisions by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of National Defense at the time constituted "dispositions" that could be contested through administrative litigation. Justices Jeong Hyeongsik, Kim Bokhyeong, and Jo Hanchang based their dismissal opinion on the grounds that there was no longer any interest to protect, as both the railway strike and the deployment of military personnel had already ended.

The three dissenting justices argued that, since there have been multiple instances where military personnel were deployed as substitute workers during railway strikes and such actions may occur again, a constitutional clarification is necessary.

Previously, the railway union attempted wage negotiations with Korail between May and August 2019, but those efforts failed. When mediation by the Central Labor Relations Commission also broke down in September of the same year, the union launched a strike.

In response, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of National Defense deployed military personnel as substitute workers. The railway union subsequently filed a constitutional complaint in December, claiming that deploying military personnel during a legal strike constituted an unlawful exercise of governmental authority.