section_path: Jurisdiction/Constitutional complaints
section_name: Constitutional complaints
paragraph_text: Constitutional complaints
  
  Article 111 Clause 1 Provision 5 of the constitution, along with Article 68 Clause 1 of the Constitutional Court Act, grants the court the authority to review whether a petitioner's basic rights have been violated by an action or inaction of a public authority. The specification of the constitutional complaints system was influenced by the German equivalent, Verfassungsbeschwerde. Because constitutional complaints (헌법소원심판) are intended to serve as a last resort, they can only be filed after all other existing legal remedies have been exhausted.
  
  Civil liability lawsuits are adjudicated by ordinary courts and therefore not subject to constitutional complaints. The court's review is limited to determining whether the petitioner's basic rights have been violated in the adjudication process. Claims for damages and compensation fall outside the court's jurisdiction and are therefore dismissed.
  
  According to Article 68 Clause 2 of the Constitutional Court Act, petitioners involved in an ongoing lawsuit can bypass the ordinary court and file a complaint directly with the Constitutional Court, provided that they have sought but were denied a referral for a review of a statute's constitutionality (법령소원심판). Because Clause 2 of the article was historically established to counteract the Park Chung Hee regime's suppression of ordinary courts, curtailing their willingness to grant referrals for constitutional reviews, it does not require that the petitioner exhaust all other legal remedies – only that the ordinary court has denied their request for a referral to the Constitutional Court.