Open Decision Ledger · Constitutional, administrative & state liability
Whether applying an amended Ordinance to building permit applications filed after the amendment of an Ordinance establishing building permit standards violates the principle of protection of legitimate expectations
Translated from the Korean original. Read the Korean
Supreme Court, Nov. 16, 2007, 2005Du8092 (judgment)
No holding summary · checked against points at issue. The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Case name: 건축허가반려처분취소
Official text on the National Law Information Center
Question
When an Ordinance establishing building permit standards has been amended, does applying the amended Ordinance to an application for a building permit filed after the amended Ordinance came into force violate the principle of protection of legitimate expectations?
Holding
Unless the supplementary provisions provide otherwise, the general rule is that whether to grant a building permit is determined under the standards of the amended statutes and regulations in force at the time of the disposition. The Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs' expectations had not been induced by Seongnam City, that they appeared to be an attempt to exploit the provisions of the pre-amendment Ordinance in an evasive manner, and that, since the value of protecting those expectations was not great in comparison with the public interest in curbing disorderly development, the application of the amended Ordinance did not violate the principle of protection of legitimate expectations.
Points at issue, verbatim
건축허가기준에 관한 개정 전 조례 조항의 존속에 대한 국민의 신뢰가 자연녹지지역 안에서의 난개발 억제라는 개정 후 조례 조항이 추구하는 공익보다 더 보호가치가 있는 것이라고 할 수 없으므로
Unofficial English translation
the people's reliance on the continued existence of the pre-amendment ordinance provision governing building permit standards cannot be said to be more worthy of protection than the public interest pursued by the post-amendment ordinance provision, namely the suppression of disorderly development in natural green zones,
Disposition
Reversed and remanded Stated in the decision
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
Form of the test
Existing test applied Read from the decision
건축허가신청에 대하여 개정 후 조례를 적용하는 것이 신뢰보호원칙에 반하지 않는다고 한 사례
Unofficial English translation
A case where applying the post-amendment ordinance to an application for a building permit does not run counter to the principle of protection of legitimate expectation
Factors
- 법령의 개정에서 신뢰보호원칙이 적용되어야 하는 이유
- 신뢰보호원칙의 위배 여부를 판단하는 방법
- 경과규정에서 그 적용 범위에 관하여 정하지 않은 경우
- 자연녹지지역 안에서의 난개발 억제
Unofficial English translation
• The reasons why the principle of protection of legitimate expectation should apply to the amendment of statutes
• The method of determining whether the principle of protection of legitimate expectation has been violated
• Where the transitional provisions do not specify the scope of their application
• The suppression of disorderly development in natural green zones
Relation to precedent
Follows earlier decisions Stated in the decision
대법원 2006. 11. 16. 선고 2003두12899 전원합의체 판결
Unofficial English translation
Supreme Court en banc Decision 2003Du12899 decided November 16, 2006
Decisions referred to
[1] 대법원 2006. 11. 16. 선고 2003두12899 전원합의체 판결(공2006하, 2085), 대법원 2007. 9. 28. 선고 2005두12572 전원합의체 판결(공2007하, 1685), 대법원 2007. 10. 29. 선고 2005두4649 전원합의체 판결(공2007하, 1853) / [2] 대법원 2005. 7. 29. 선고 2003두3550 판결(공2005하, 1442)
Burden of proof
Not addressed Not in the decision
Open question and revisit condition
If reliance on the pre-amendment statutes and regulations was induced by the administrative authority, is that reliance accorded sufficient value to justify restricting the application of the amended statutes and regulations?
This reading will be re-examined if the standards for permitting buildings in natural green zones under the Seongnam City Urban Planning Ordinance or [Appendix Table 17] to the Enforcement Decree of the National Land Planning and Utilization Act is amended again.
Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check
7 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-16
A comparison with an independent reading produced by another line of AI (GPT-6 Astra), which read only the original text without seeing the first reading, showed that 7 of the 8 axes were consistent, while the readings diverged on the fourth axis (Form of the test).
Axis 4 (Form of the test): Primary “Existing test applied” vs Independent “Circumstances weighed”
Because the original text presents both the method of weighing reliance against the public interest and the concrete applications following from it, the first reading may place weight on the application to the facts, while the independent reading may place weight on the comparative weighing of reliance and the public interest.
개정 전 조례 조항의 존속에 대한 국민의 신뢰가 자연녹지지역 안에서의 난개발 억제라는 개정 후 조례 조항이 추구하는 공익보다 더 보호가치가 있는 것이라고 할 수 없으므로Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)
Lower-court contrast & scope of application
Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding
Lower-court context: The court below held that, even if the provisions of the amended Ordinance served the public purpose of curbing evasive, disorderly development, this could not justify the destruction of the expectation that a building permit could be obtained under the provisions of the pre-amendment Ordinance; it therefore treated the provisions of the amended Ordinance as void for violating the principle of protection of legitimate expectations, and held that the disposition of rejection based thereon was also unlawful.
Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court, citing, among other matters, that the expectations had not been induced by Seongnam City and appeared to involve an evasive use of the Ordinance; that the provisions of the amended Ordinance merely imposed some limitation on the scope of buildings that had only exceptionally been permitted; and that the matter did not offend equity even when compared with the permits granted to other co-owners, held that the plaintiffs' expectations could not be regarded as deserving greater protection than the public interest in curbing disorderly development, and reversed and remanded the case, holding that the court below had misapprehended the legal principles concerning the principle of protection of legitimate expectations.
Distinguishing conditions
- Where the supplementary provisions of the amended statutes and regulations provide that the former provisions shall apply to matters pending or arising before a specified point in time
- Where the people's reliance, or the conduct based thereon, is recognized as having been induced by the administrative authority
- Where the amendment does not merely reduce an exceptional benefit but substantially deprives persons of an existing legal status
Record verification notes
Before asserting the same conclusion, it is necessary to check whether the time of the application for a building permit fell before or after the entry into force of the amended statutes and regulations, whether the transitional provisions of the supplementary provisions apply, whether the administrative authority was involved in the formation of the reliance, and whether there is any issue of equity with other applicants holding a similar status.
From the official text
Points at issue
[1] 법령의 개정에서 신뢰보호원칙이 적용되어야 하는 이유 및 신뢰보호원칙의 위배 여부를 판단하는 방법 [2] 건축허가기준에 관한 관계 법령이 개정되고 경과규정에서 그 적용 범위에 관하여 정하지 않은 경우, 건축허가기준에 적용될 법령 [3] 건축허가기준에 관한 개정 전 조례 조항의 존속에 대한 국민의 신뢰가 자연녹지지역 안에서의 난개발 억제라는 개정 후 조례 조항이 추구하는 공익보다 더 보호가치가 있는 것이라고 할 수 없으므로, 건축허가신청에 대하여 개정 후 조례를 적용하는 것이 신뢰보호원칙에 반하지 않는다고 한 사례
Unofficial English translation
[1] The reasons why the principle of protection of legitimate expectation should apply to the amendment of statutes, and the method of determining whether the principle of protection of legitimate expectation has been violated [2] Where the relevant statutes governing building permit standards have been amended and the transitional provisions do not specify the scope of their application, the statute to be applied to building permit standards [3] A case where, since the people's reliance on the continued existence of the pre-amendment ordinance provision governing building permit standards cannot be said to be more worthy of protection than the public interest pursued by the post-amendment ordinance provision, namely the suppression of disorderly development in natural green zones, applying the post-amendment ordinance to an application for a building permit does not run counter to the principle of protection of legitimate expectation
Summary of the holding
The official text publishes no summary of the holding for this decision. The quotation and factors in this record are copied verbatim from the points at issue; the evidence for each axis is taken from the points at issue, the order and the reasons.
Order
원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 서울고등법원에 환송한다.
Unofficial English translation
The judgment of the court below is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Seoul High Court.
Provisions referred to
[1] 행정절차법 제4조 제2항 [2] 행정절차법 제4조 제2항 [3] 국토의 계획 및 이용에 관한 법률 제76조 제1항, 국토의 계획 및 이용에 관한 법률 시행령 제71조 제1항 제16호 [별표 17] 제1호, 제2호
Read 2026-10-16 · Cross-read 2026-10-16. All quotes matched against the official text. The Chinese-character placeholders the court used for anonymised parties are given in their Korean readings, and parenthetical Chinese-character glosses are omitted.
Every entry is published only after all quotes have been matched character by character against the official text, and audited by an independent second reading from a different model family across all eight axes. Both agreed axes and text-grounded interpretive divergences are recorded openly. The ledger is a research record, not an assessment of the court or advice on any matter.
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