사립고등학교에서의 종교교육과 학생의 인권 = Religion Education in Private High Schools and the Human Rights of the Students

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

There are many private mission schools in Korea, and the education of private mission schools is given a great deal of weight on the high school education. However, the problem is that even the mission high schools where the students were admitted not by their own choice but by the forced assignment compel the students, as a matter of fact, to take the class of religion dogma and to attend the school activities on the religion. The conflicts between the mission high schools and their students had been continued since before and the Korean Supreme Court issued a first decision in April 22nd in the year of 2010 on this issue at the so-called Mr. Kang Eui-Seok Case. Mr. Kang Eui-Seok had initiated a civil suit against his high school when he had been its student claiming that his freedom of religion had been infringed by the forced religion education of the school. Seoul District Court ruled for Mr. Kang acknowledging the infringement of his human rights, but Seoul Higher Court ruled against him in that the school had the right to educate on the religion. Finally, Korean Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mr. Kang and ordered the school to pay him 15,000,000 won (about 15,000 US dollars) for damages. The Supreme Court ruled that the freedom of religion by the students took precedence over the private high school`s right to educate on the religion. It also attracts attention as a Supreme Court decision to present the limit of the right to educate on the religion by private high schools in Korea. This paper aims at revealing the concrete limits of private high school`s right to educate on the religion by analyzing the Korean Supreme Court`s case and the concerned U.S. Supreme Court cases. For this, it will overview the court decisions and theories on the freedom of religion as well as the right to educate on the religion in the United States. Then, this paper will present concrete limits of the right to educate on the religion based on the Korean Supreme Court`s case as well as the U.S. Supreme Court`s cases.