## Facts

- Article 12(5) of Korea’s Political Fund Act prohibited labor unions from making political contributions.
- The Act did not similarly restrict other social organizations, including management or employer-related groups, from making political contributions.
- The restriction reflected a legislative premise that labor unions should improve working conditions through collective bargaining and agreements, not through political activity.
- Legislators also cited concerns that union political donations could endanger a union’s financial stability and could lead to politicization of the organization.
- A labor union filed a constitutional complaint (Hun-Ma) challenging Article 12(5), claiming the ban violated constitutionally protected participation in political discourse and related freedoms.

## Issues

1. Whether a statutory ban that prevents labor unions from making political contributions restricts constitutionally protected political participation and associational activity.
2. Whether prohibiting only labor unions—while allowing other social organizations, including management groups, to contribute—violates the constitutional principle of equality.
3. Whether the government’s stated aims (avoiding politicization of unions and protecting union finances) justify a categorical, union-only prohibition under constitutional limits on rights restrictions.

## Decision

- The Constitutional Court of Korea held Article 12(5)’s union-only prohibition on political contributions unconstitutional.
- The Court accepted that political-fund regulation can serve legitimate public purposes, but found that singling out labor unions for a blanket ban was not justified.
- The Court rejected the idea that unions may be confined to collective bargaining alone and excluded from political channels that affect workers’ interests.

## Legal Principles

- Political participation may include collective, organized activity by associations; unions are not constitutionally restricted to workplace bargaining as their sole means of representing members’ interests.
- When election-finance rules burden one category of association but allow comparable groups to participate, equality concerns arise and the state must offer a strong, reasoned justification for the disparity.
- Even where preventing undue political influence or protecting an organization’s finances is a legitimate aim, a total prohibition targeted at a single group is difficult to justify when less restrictive regulatory tools are available.
- The state may regulate political funding, but it cannot use finance law to exclude a major segment of civil society from political discourse on terms that are materially more restrictive than those applied to others.

## Conclusion

The Constitutional Court concluded that Article 12(5) of the Political Fund Act unconstitutionally barred labor unions—alone among comparable social organizations—from making political contributions, because the measure imposed an excessive and unequal restriction on unions’ participation in political discourse and association.


Trade Unions' Political Contributions Case, 11-2 KCCR 555, 95 Hun-Ma (1999)