A/HRC/32/36/Add.2 The Special Rapporteur encourages the Government to see the connection between providing space for free, democratic engagement and economic growth. A good environment for civil society guarantees, almost without exception, a good business environment. Fostering a robust, vocal and critical civil society not only improves the health of democracy, it also furthers the economic goals of the Government (see A/70/266, para. 18). 2. Labour unions 53. The Special Rapporteur was informed at length about the serious challenges facing workers in the Republic of Korea. Key concerns included limitations placed on certain categories of individuals and workers on forming and joining unions, difficulties in organizing collective action and actions taken by employers to weaken or destroy independent unions. Legal framework 54. Article 33 of the Constitution provides for the right to collective action, but limits those rights for public officials and defence industry workers. That position differs notably from article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and article 8 of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, which recognize only that lawful restrictions may be made to the rights of members of the armed forces and police or the State administration. 55. The rights of teachers and public officials to freedom of association are regulated by the Act on the Establishment, Operation etc. of Trade Unions for Teachers and the Act on the Establishment, Operation etc. of Public Officials’ Trade Unions, respectively. However, not all categories of teachers or public officials are able to exercise their association rights. In April 2015, the Ministry of Employment and Labour reportedly declined to recognize the Korean Professors Union because the Act does not recognize university lecturers as eligible to form and join trade unions. 56. Both pieces of legislation explicitly prohibit teachers’ trade unions (articles 3 and 8) and public officials (articles 4 and 11) from engaging in any kind of political activity or industrial action, respectively. The prohibition of teachers’ unions from engaging in political activity has been upheld by the Constitutional Court as justifiable. The Special Rapporteur is concerned that this prohibition, based on a largely vague notion of “political activity”, imposes broad constraints on the ability of those categories of individuals to express themselves on a wide range of issues under the guise of maintaining “political neutrality”. 57. The Trade Union and Labour Relations Adjustment Act states that non-workers may not be part of a union and dismissed workers, in respect of whom the National Labour Relations Commission has made a review decision, are also prohibited from trade union membership under other provisions of the law. Since 1997, the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association has extensively considered the restrictions imposed on the union membership of dismissed workers in the Republic of Korea. The Special Rapporteur endorses fully the recommendations of the Committee that the Government should take the necessary measures to amend or repeal legal provisions that prohibit dismissed workers from being union members as being contrary to the principles of freedom of association. 6 6 12 See report No. 371 of the Committee on Freedom of Association, March 2014, case No. 1865, para. 53.