Court rejects petition to stop free meal vote

By Kim Rahn

A local court has rejected a petition to stop Seoul’s referendum on free school lunches, giving the go-ahead on the vote scheduled for next Wednesday.

The decision has cleared almost all legal hurdles the city government has faced in the course of conducting the residents’ vote on whether to provide free school meals to all students or only to those in low-income brackets.

The Seoul Administrative Court Tuesday rejected the petition lodged by 11 opposition Democratic Party (DP) members and civic group leaders against Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon last month to suspend the voting which they claim was legally flawed.

They insisted the lunch issue was not subject to a referendum because the law bans votes on an issue related to budgets or an issue on trial. They also said many of the signatures collected in favor of the vote were false and those who collected them didn’t follow proper procedures.

As reasons for the rejection, the court said that “The law bans referendums on the budget, but it does not include a ‘policy’ requiring a budget. We acknowledge that the signature collection didn’t follow the due process, but that does not mean the collected signatures are invalid.”

The court continued, the submitted evidence is not enough to recognize the petitioners’ claim that the signatures were written by proxy or civil servants were involved in the collection process.

The court earlier rejected another petition by the groups which claimed the signature list should be kept as evidence that it was “illegal.” The court said the city government was not obliged to submit the list and that it was unlikely to be destroyed.

Now the only legal battle left is the petition filed with the Constitutional Court by Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education Superintendent Kwak No-hyun. He claims the school meal issue is under his authority and Mayor Oh has infringed on his jurisdiction.

Different reactions to rejection

Oh welcomed the court’s decision, saying it proved that most of the doubts raised by the DP and some civic groups were groundless. “Now with the court’s decision, I ask them to stop this futile political offensive and cooperate for the vote to be held smoothly,” the mayor said in a statement.

The National Anti-Populism Union, a civic group supporting Oh, also called for opposition groups to stop their campaign to boycott the vote, saying the court found their claims groundless.

Conversely, the education office said in a statement that the court’s rejection hasn’t changed the illegality of the referendum.

“The Constitutional Court will make the final decision on whether the vote is lawful or not. The city government should stop its crusade encouraging people to take part in the referendum,” it said.

DP spokesman Lee Yong-seop expressed regret over the court’s decision. “We will boycott the vote together with citizens to finalize the free school meal program, which is the state’s duty and the people’s rights,” he said.