Court Dismisses Lawsuit by Doctors Seeking to Cancel Military Enlistment Delay

A Seoul court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by six former medical residents who wanted the government to cancel their status as waiting for military enlistment.

The Seoul Administrative Court’s Administrative Division 1 issued the ruling on July 10, the court said on Aug. 6. The plaintiffs had asked the court to overturn their classification as people not selected for active-duty service after they resigned from training hospitals in opposition to the medical school admissions expansion policy under the Yoon Suk Yeol government.

Under the Military Service Act’s enforcement decree, residents who leave training institutions must enlist as active-duty officers or public health doctors. As mass resignations increased the number of doctors subject to enlistment, the Defense Ministry revised its rules in February last year. The change classified former residents as not selected for active-duty service and placed them on an enlistment waiting list, with the intention of selecting them sequentially over four years as military doctors or public health doctors.

The plaintiffs filed their case in April last year. They challenged the Defense Ministry’s notification to the Military Manpower Administration containing the results of its electronic classification of medical and veterinary officer candidates and applicants by service branch and military category.

The court did not examine the substance of their claims. It ruled that the challenged notice was not an administrative disposition eligible for review in an administrative lawsuit. The judges said the notice merely conveyed the ministry’s sorting of annual candidates into selected and non-selected groups after considering the military’s need for active-duty personnel. They described it as an internal action between administrative agencies.

The court also said the rule change appeared to reflect a situation in which the number of candidates for active-duty medical officers exceeded demand for active and alternative service because of the mass resignations. It found that the classification notice did not directly alter the plaintiffs’ rights or obligations, nor interfere with the exercise of any right.

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The classification notice in this case is merely an internal action between administrative agencies.