Even though he ranked first in management evaluation, the post office director received ‘zero performance bonus’… Court "disposition is illegal"

The Seoul Administrative Court ruled that the Ministry of Science and ICT should cancel the disposition of the Director of the Korea Post for failing to pay performance bonuses by giving him the lowest grade of C in the individual performance evaluation even though he ranked first in the department's management evaluation.

According to the legal community on the 9th, the 8th Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Yang Soon-ju) ruled in favor of the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Mr. A, who recently retired from retirement while working as a director at the Korea Post, against the Minister of Science and ICT, requesting cancellation of non-payment of performance bonuses.

The Minister of Science and ICT notified Mr. A in April last year that he was excluded from performance bonus payments as he was rated C as a result of the 2024 performance evaluation. According to the civil servant remuneration regulations, if you receive a C grade in the previous year's work performance evaluation, the performance salary payment is 0% of the standard amount.

Mr. A was dissatisfied with the disposition and requested an appeal review, but the Appeal Review Committee of the Ministry of Personnel Management dismissed the claim, saying that the disposition was not subject to appeal review.

Accordingly, Mr. A filed a lawsuit in court, and the first trial court ruled in Mr. A's favor.

First, the court determined that the non-payment of performance bonus was an administrative disposition that had a specific and direct impact on Mr. A's right to or scope of performance salary.

It is judged that it is subject to appeal review as it constitutes an ‘unfavorable disposition against the person’s will’ under the National Public Officials Act.

The court found that the basis for assigning the lowest grade to Mr. A was insufficient.

The court said, "According to the evaluation results, the plaintiff achieved or exceeded the goals in most evaluation indicators and was rated 'very good' or 'excellent' in all evaluation elements of the job performance ability evaluation, but each overall grade was given the lowest grade," and judged, "It is difficult to find a reasonable correlation between the detailed evaluation results and the comprehensive grade."

The Ministry of Science and ICT cited the fact that the management balance improvement and postal sales target achievement rates were only 97.9% and 99.5%, respectively, and the annual leave use rate of department heads and department employees was only 36.7% as the reasons for assigning the lowest grade.

The fact that an incident of forced harassment against a disabled employee occurred in the department managed by Mr. A was also presented as evidence.

The Ministry of Science and ICT also claimed that Mr. A caused labor-management conflict by changing the interview schedule for the on-site postal worker due to the interviewer and golf schedule on the same day, and that in the process of adding insurance manager training subjects, the insurance team leader who opposed this was transferred.

However, the court found that these circumstances did not meet the requirements for granting the lowest grade established by relevant laws and regulations.

The court also pointed out that "the department of which the plaintiff was the director ranked first in the management evaluation for the year in question," and said, "The defendant's granting the plaintiff the lowest grade was a deviation and abuse of discretion, and the disposition of non-payment of performance bonuses based on that evaluation was also illegal."