일하는 사람의 인격권 보호에 관한 일고찰

All working people are granted the right to be respected as an entity with human dignity and value in the process of providing labor service. However, their personal interests are often infringed in the process of providing labor service. In response, there are ongoing Labor Act-related discussions on need to find solutions by focusing on concept of “Personal Right” to protect working people. In awareness of the importance of active discussions on personal rights in terms of the Labor Act, this study identified the nature of personal right, examined the solutions for protecting the working people from personal interest infringement, and explored future tasks. In general, “Personal Right” means the right to enjoy the personal interest regarding natural personality expression and right inseparable from each individual, the right to form, maintain, and protect the personality, and right to keep the personality intact from distortion, deformation, and damage. Recently, there have been many discussions in the Labor Act on the concept of “Labor Personality Right” based on the labor right and personality right to protect the working people. However, in order to expand the discussions and seek flexible legal protection of the working people based on the comprehensive and open concept of personal right, it is necessary to have detailed and flexible discussions on protection of right and types of relief for each labor service type based on the general personal right. Meanwhile, the current Labor Relations Act does not have a separate regulation on a subsequent relief measure for personal right infringement. As a result, any personal interest infringement in labor service is widely handled by separately charging compensation of damage to infringer or employer. Nevertheless, such a compensation system is limited to a legal system for correcting or recovering the right of working people infringed by workplace harassment. It requires excessive time and cost to proceed with the lawsuit, and the infringed rights are not recovered completely. Especially, the right of the working people is not protected enough because the amount of compensation for infringement of mental personality right is still small. Thus, it is necessary to diversify the relief for personal right infringements, such as workplace harassment, activate prohibition claim and provisional disposition system for preliminary relief, and legislate the system to exercise the right to refuse work.