The Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) said on the 24th it will revise the Teachers' Union Act to allow university professor unions to engage in political activities.
Minister Kim Young-hoon said that day, "We respect the Constitutional Court's judgment that took into account the special legal status of university faculty," adding, "We will promptly push to revise the Teachers' Union Act in line with the purpose of the decision."
On the previous day, the Constitutional Court ruled the provision in Article 3 of the Teachers' Union Act that bans political activities unconstitutional for university professor unions, saying it infringes on the right to equality, in a 7-2 decision (unconstitutional vs. constitutional).
Earlier, beginning in June 2020, university professors were allowed to form unions. However, the clause banning political activities was left unchanged, so the provision that applied to teacher unions also applied to professor unions as is. Individual professors can engage in political activities, but professor unions were banned from doing so. In response, the National Professors' Union and the Private University Professors' Union filed a constitutional complaint the same year, and after six years, the court issued an unconstitutional ruling.