$87,000 each: Japanese firm ordered to compensate wartime forced laborers

Lee Chun-sik, right, the last surviving plaintiff in a compensation lawsuit filed by Korean forced laborers against Nippon Steel, sheds tears outside the Supreme Court in southern Seoul, after winning the suit, Tuesday. On the left is the widow of Kim Kyu-soo, one of the deceased plaintiffs. / Korea Times photo by Shin Sang-soon

Supreme Court affirms lower court ruling against Nippon Steel

By Lee Suh-yoon

In a long-delayed ruling likely to strain relations with Japan, Korea's top court ordered a Japanese steel firm, Tuesday, to compensate four Koreans who were forced to work in its factories during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of the country.

A panel of 13 judges, including Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su, rejected an appeal submitted by Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corp., thus affirming a lower court ruling that ordered the company to pay 100 million won ($87,000) to each victim.

The 13-year-long legal battle started after Japanese courts previously dismissed the case in 1997, saying the compensation issue was “already solved” by the 1965 treaty normalizing diplomatic ties between the two countries. The victims then took it up with a Korean court in 2005.

A local and an appellate court followed the original verdict of the Japanese courts. But the Supreme Court rejected the prior rulings in 2012, saying the Japanese courts' rulings went against Korea's Constitution. It ordered a retrial in a lower court, which also ruled in favor of the Korean victims, and then the Japanese company appealed.

In Tuesday's verdict, the Supreme Court found that the Japanese courts' decision was based on the disputable premise that its occupation of Korea was legal, which contradicts the Korean Constitution.

It also dismissed the company's claims that forced laborers' individual right to claim compensation for harm was terminated by the 1965 treaty.

“The plaintiffs are not asking for unpaid wages, they are asking for compensation for the illegal actions by Japanese firms,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su said in reading the verdict. “The 1965 treaty does not include compensation for rights violated by Japan's illegal occupation of Korea."

The ruling is likely to draw similar lawsuits from other forced laborers, numbering at least 1 million according to scholars. Fourteen other court cases are now pending regarding wartime forced labor, with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries also awaiting a Supreme Court decision in Busan.

While three of the plaintiffs have died during the delayed legal battle, the sole surviving member, Lee Chun-sik, 94, was present in the courtroom to hear the decision.

“On my arrival at the Supreme Court, I realized I was alone,” Lee tearfully told reporters outside the courtroom after the ruling, saying he had not been told that the others who submitted the suit with him had passed away. “I can't stop crying, it hurts a lot.”

Shortly after the ruling, Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Taro Kono expressed regret, saying it “turned over the legal foundations of Korea-Japan relations.”

In a public statement after the ruling, Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said the government would work to “heal the wounds” of the forced labor victims as well as develop Korea-Japan relations in a “forward-looking way.”

Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also announced it would communicate with its Japanese counterpart to make sure the ruling “did not have a negative impact on Korea-Japan relations.”

Tuesday's ruling gained attention also partly because it was at the center of a growing power abuse scandal involving the court administration. Emerging evidence shows politically sensitive trials like the forced labor case were used as bargaining chips by the former National Court Administration (NCA) under former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae to lobby for a de facto Second Appeals Court with the former Park Geun-hye administration.

The prosecution suspects the final verdict on the forced labor case was delayed for over five years so as not to disturb the foreign ministry's diplomatic rapprochement with Japan.

Investigations found that the NCA discussed the forced labor case in depth with Cheong Wa Dae and the ministry in 2013 and 2014. In 2013, the NCA sent a personal letter to then Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, asking for the creation of new overseas judiciary posts, including one that was created the following year at the United Nations delegation in New York. Yun was also found to have sent the NCA an “opinion letter” on the forced labor case in 2016.