석궁 사건과 교수재임용제 / 김종서

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[국문주제어]

재임용제, 석궁사건, 사립학교법, 오적

Crossbow Affair and the Reappointment System of University Teachers

Kim, Jong-Seo

Professor, Paichai University

This article aims at clarifying the implication of the so-called crossbow affair, through a critique of Seoul High Court’s decision which brought about the unprecedented incident like this. The court decided against an ex-professor Kim, the alleged shooter, in a case regarding the reappointment system of university teachers.

Injuring a judge because of his/her decision can never be justified in any case. Such an incident has long been expected, however, since no remedies have been provided for university teachers who had lost jobs by unlawful or unfair denial of reappointments.

The high court’s decision caused severe damage not only to Professor Kim on the one hand, but to those professors who have been protesting against unfair denial of their reappointments. In my view, it was wrong at least in three aspects:

First, the court unduly restricted the applicability of the Private School Act newly revised in early 2005, and instead based the decision on the old law, blocking every way of judicial remedy for those who had been unfairly denied reappointments.

Secondly, even under the old Private School Act, the court made fatal errors regarding some juridical issues: it abandoned the principle of “trial in conformity with the Act” since its decision was based on the charter of the defense party, a private university, not on the provisions of the law; the court justified the denial of reappointment of Professor Kim on the basis of several factors such as his remarks to peers or students, his academic grading practice and work performance, though they could not be deemed as probable causes for depriving one’s professorship; and the court overlooked the fact that his academic merits were not objectively reviewed, which might make overall process of reappointment review unfair.

Third and finally, the court disregarded the core point that the reappointment had been denied in retaliation of his announcement indicating the fallacy of a question in mathematics included in 1995 admission test of the defense University.

Behind the unfortunate crossbow affair lies the problematic reappointment system of university teachers. The system itself has been created, maintained and abused by various factors. The National Assembly has adopted the system without any safeguard against misuse and abuse of it. The board of trustees of private colleges used the system for the evil purpose of ousting those professors critical of unfair management practices of the board. Next is the Ministry of Education, which took no steps to prevent and sanction the abuses while acknowledging the situation. Judicial courts and the Constitutional Court are most responsible because they have been denying any remedy for those professors who had lost jobs under the system, in the name of law or constitution.

They deserve the name “Five Thieves under Reappointment System.”

[Key Words]

Reappointment System, Crossbow Affair, the Private School Act, Five Thieves