Sharing Economy and Freedom of Occupation in Korean Constitution

Abstract

As human beings get usually the means of living through their own physical and/or intellectual activities, it is normal that they have to be able to decide and exercise their own activities, so-called, freedom of occupation. It includes freedom of choice, freedom of exercising an occupation, freedom of business and enterprise, freedom of competitionIt, etc. And, it is not compatible, in principle, with planned economy order. Today, the development of science and technology requires the sharing of all information and goods. The introduction of a new system represents a challenge to the existing order, and resistance arises. Recently, in Korea, there has been a serious social conflicts between licensed taxi drivers and individual drivers sharing their cars through SNS. Sharing one’s car for a fee, as a type of sharing economy, it means an appearance of new type’s public transport like Uber taxi and one of a new job. It asks to share the taxi market between traditional taxi drivers and individual drivers offering their car to the public for a fee. Even though it is also a kind of constitutional requests to harmonize the two kinds of job, sharing means of transport can be advantageous for users through competition between them. And, it is doubtful whether we will be able to deny this time change. As KCC has already confirmed, it is impossible to reform the society, including the profession or the system, according to the needs of the public welfare if the legislator has to adhere to the existing order that has already been formed. Based on a certain degree of confidence protection, new changes must be actively accepted in legislation and in constitutional review, especially, in the field of freedom of occupation.