Constitutional Issues on Unlicensed Medical Practice

In a situation where disease treatments coexist in various ways, the provision of the Medical Service Act that uniformly and comprehensively prohibits and penalizes unlicensed medical practices has repeatedly been brought before the Constitutional Court. The so-called alternative medicine cases contain the core constitutional issues surrounding unlicensed medical practices under the Medical Service Act. This paper critically analyzes the main issues and arguments of the Constitutional Court's decisions regarding alternative medicine and suggests the direction for the Medical Service Act. First, it points out that the Medical Service Act system based on the license system is structurally distorted by nationalism, professionalism, and scientism. Second, the regulatory approach of the Medical Service Act, which strictly restricts alternative medicine without clearly defining the scope of medical practice, may constitute an excessive restriction on the freedom of occupation of alternative medicine practitioners. Third, in the structure of realizing medical practice, medical consumers are positioned as objects of treatment; therefore, it is necessary to respect the right of self-determination of the people (patients) by recognizing various forms of alternative medicine.