Can Korea seize Ha Young's family wealth under pro-Japanese asset recovery law?

As controversy swirls around actor Ha Young's great-grandfather's pro-Japanese past, Korea's Investigative Commission on Pro-Japanese Collaborators' Property will restart operations this December after a 16-year hiatus — raising the question of whether her family's assets could be among those examined and seized.

The commission's reactivation follows the scheduled enforcement of the Special Act on Asset Confiscation for Pro-Japanese and Anti-National Collaborators to the State on Dec. 3. The law targets wealth and property illegally amassed through cooperation with Japan during the 1910-1945 occupation of Korea.

“It is unclear how much property this second commission will be able to recover,” said Lee Jun-sik, former head of the Independence Hall of Korea. “The controversy surrounding Ha Young is no different. Once the commission launches, it will discuss and decide the matter there. For now, we cannot know how it will turn out.”

Lee said recovering assets is difficult because most of the property collaborators once owned has already passed to third parties.

“Take farmland, for example. After the Korean government was established (in 1948), land reform changed the ownership of many rice paddies and fields. Even land untouched by land reform has, over the 80 years since liberation, mostly been sold off.”

Lee said the recovery process largely falls into two categories: property descendants still own, and property they have already sold and profited from.

The commission can directly seize property that descendants still hold, though they are likely to sue in response. For property already sold, the state must sue for each one to recover the unjust profits, a process Lee predicted would be difficult.

Authorities pursue unjust profits instead of the property itself because the rights of third parties who unknowingly acquired it cannot be infringed upon, Lee added.

But 81 years after Korea's 1945 liberation, determining the scale of assets to be recovered is not easy either.

Property sold off decades ago would have carried a low market value at the time, but land developed since could be worth far more today. Lee said accounting for that gap between the original price and today's price remains a practical problem.

“For example, property sold for 50 million won ($35,700) decades ago could be worth 5 billion won now, raising the question of which figure should be recovered. The courts would likely order recovery of the original 50 million won,” Lee said.

The effort to recover such assets is also a legally sensitive matter, lawyer Son Soo-ho said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting System.

Son said the need to restore historical justice is strong, but so is the need for legal stability and property rights, citing a failed attempt to recover a luxury hotel in Seoul owned by the grandson of a collaborator.

But he said that even within that difficult standard, if a case meets the court's strict requirements, then in his view such descendants shouldn't offer excuses or complaints.

“But when they instead sue, complain, refuse to comply, quietly move their assets overseas, leave the country and then criticize Korea from abroad, that is what makes people truly angry.”