Supreme Court rules in favor of forced laborers

Posted on : 2012-05-25 10:22 KST Modified on : 2012-05-25 10:22 KST
Victims of colonial exploitation make important step toward justice

By Kim Jeong-pil, staff reporter
Sixty-eight years after being drafted into labor at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel, victims of Japanese colonial conscription have an avenue to receive compensation and unpaid wages.
The Supreme Court ruled on May 24 that Japanese firms should compensate South Koreans who performed forced labor during the colonial era. Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 until Japan‘s 1945 defeat in World War II.
The Supreme Court’s first division, under Justice Kim Nung-hwan, reversed district and appellate court rulings that ruled for the defendants Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel filed by conscription victim Lee Byeong-mok, 89, and eight surviving family members of other victims. The cases were remanded to Busan High Court and Seoul High Court, a decision that came twelve years after litigation began in South Korea. The plaintiffs were demanding compensation for illegal actions by the defendants, as well as unpaid wages.
But the court dismissed a request for a constitutionality hearing recommendation on the Korea-Japan Claim Agreement, arguing that resolving the question of its unconstitutionality was not a precondition for its ruling.
The Korea-Japan Claim Agreement was one of four supplementary agreements that were part of the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations that established diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan. The others are concerned with fisheries, cultural matters and the legal status of Koreans residing in Japan.
In signing the Treaty on Basic Relations, the Park Chung-hee government agreed not to seek further redress for colonial era injustices. That has complicated the efforts of South Koreans who have since sought compensation for colonial era labor and mistreatment.
Lee was among a number of Koreans forced into heavy labor in 1944 at a Mitsubishi machinery plant and shipyard in Hiroshima. The conscriptees slept twelve to a room on tatami mats and were fed poorly. Their lodgings were encircled by barbed wire, and they were subjected to surveillance, including censorship of communication with family members.
After suffering major injuries during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, they returned home at their own expense aboard smuggling vessels and other means. Life afterwards was difficult due to radiation exposure aftereffects and financial struggles.
Some of the victims filed suit with the Hiroshima district court in 1995 to claim damages, but the case was dismissed in its first trial in 1999 due to the expiration of the statue of limitations. They subsequently lost their appeal, a decision confirmed in 2007 by Japan’s Supreme Court.
They also filed suit at Busan District Court in May 2000, losing the first and second trials before taking the case to the South Korean Supreme Court. Another group of conscriptees, including Yeo Un-taek, 89, returned home in 1944 from Japan Iron and Steel (a predecessor of Nippon Steel), where they had been forced into labor, after the plant was destroyed by aerial bombing. In 1997, survivors filed suits with Osaka District Court and Osaka High Court, but lost both. The rulings were confirmed after they decided not to appeal. In February 2005, they filed suit with Seoul Central District Court, losing the original and appeals trials before taking the case to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court said the Japanese courts’ decision to dismiss the previous suits by the victims was “based on the premise that colonial rule of Korea was lawful, which directly conflicts with core values of the Republic of Korea’s Constitution, which holds that forced mobilization under Japanese colonial rule was inherently unlawful.
"To acknowledge the Japanese rulings would be in violation of South Korea’s good customs, or any other social order," the court said.
The court went on to say that the Korea-Japan Claim Agreement does not negate individuals’ rights to demand damages for illegal actions in which national authorities had a part.
"We cannot view personal claim rights as having been extinguished by the Claim Agreement, or South Korean diplomatic protections as having been abandoned," the court said.
 
Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]

Most viewed articles