A lawsuit filed by medical students to cancel the government's decision to add 2,000 medical school seats was not accepted by the court, as with earlier suits from the medical community.
The court said the 2025 admissions cycle has already ended, and the 2026 class size was adjusted back to the pre-expansion level, concluding the admissions process, so canceling the 2024 expansion decision would not change anything in practice. It also found that any practical interest in disputing the previous decision had disappeared because seats for 2027 and beyond were reassigned under new procedures.
◇More than 4,500 medical students' suit dismissed
According to legal sources on the 1st, the Seoul Administrative Court's Administrative Division 13 (Presiding Judge Jin Hyun-seop, chief judge) dismissed all claims on May 25 in a lawsuit filed by more than 4,500 medical students nationwide against the Minister of Health and Welfare and the Minister of the Ministry of Education seeking to cancel the "disposition to increase medical school admissions quotas."
A dismissal ends the case without fully examining whether the policy was unlawful because the suit does not meet procedural requirements. The court ordered each side to bear its own legal costs.
On Feb. 6, 2024, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration announced it would increase the 2025 medical school admissions quota by 2,000, from 3,058 to 5,058. On Mar. 20 that year, the Ministry of Education notified universities of the seat allocations by school. The medical students filed suit in April 2024 seeking to overturn the Health and Welfare Ministry's expansion announcement and the Ministry of Education's school-by-school allocation decisions.
The bench first held that the Health and Welfare Ministry's announcement itself was not an administrative disposition subject to cancellation by the court. It said the structure is that the Minister of the Ministry of Education sets the medical school quota, while consulting with the Minister of Health and Welfare in doing so. The intent was that the ministry's announcement alone is unlikely to create legal effects that directly affect the public's rights or obligations.
It also found there was no practical benefit in canceling the Ministry of Education's school-by-school allocation decision. The 2025 admissions process has already been completed, and the 2026 class size was adjusted to 3,058—the same as 2024 before the expansion—and that admissions process has ended. The bench said that even if it were to cancel the March 2024 allocation decision, it would be difficult to revert admissions that have already concluded to their previous state.
It also found that the quotas for 2027 and beyond were not at issue in this suit. The government this year reset the training scale for physicians for the 2027–2031 school years, and the Ministry of Education reran the allocation process for 32 medical schools outside Seoul. The bench determined that this new allocation effectively replaced the March 2024 allocation decision.
◇Professors' suit and injunction bids also fall through
Earlier suits over the medical school expansion followed a similar pattern. The merits suit filed by medical school professors was dismissed by the Seoul Administrative Court in March last year. At the time, the court said the professors lacked standing to seek cancellation of the Ministry of Education's school-by-school allocation decision, and that the Health and Welfare Ministry's expansion announcement was not an administrative disposition subject to cancellation by the court.
An injunction request to temporarily halt the expansion's effect was also not accepted by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said the medical students had standing to seek an injunction, but found that stopping the expansion would have a greater impact on the public interest. In this merits suit, the medical students were the plaintiffs, but due to the completion of admissions and the new allocations, the case ultimately did not reach a ruling on the merits.
◇Board of Audit and Inspection: "Expansion process inadequate"… court does not rule on illegality
The Board of Audit and Inspection's findings were belatedly reflected in the written judgment. In November last year, the Board of Audit and Inspection said that in the process of adding 2,000 medical school seats, the logical consistency of the projection of physician shortages in 2035 was inadequate, and that the procedures for gathering opinions from doctors' groups and for deliberation by the Health and Medical Policy Deliberation Committee were insufficient. It also pointed to problems in the school-by-school allocation process, including the composition of the allocation committee, on-site inspections, and the application of criteria.
However, the court did not decide whether the previous expansion decision was unlawful based on the Board of Audit and Inspection's criticism. The medical students argued that the same problems could recur and that the court should determine illegality, but the bench said it was difficult to recognize a risk of the same disposition being repeated in light of amendments to relevant laws and regulations, the audit findings, and the new allocation procedures for 2027 and beyond.