The Ministry of Justice announced on 5th that it would withdraw the appeals filed by the state regarding the government compensation lawsuits initiated by the victims of the Brothers Home and Seongam Academy. This aims to promptly realize the victims' rights. In the future, it plans to forgo appeals in first-instance trials, except in exceptional cases.
The Brothers Home is a large facility for holding vagrants that went through names such as Brothers Childcare Center and Brothers Institute. The essence of the 'Brothers Home incident' revolves around the fact that over 38,000 people were forcibly detained and subjected to forced labor and abuse under a consignment contract between the Ministry of Home Affairs, established in 1975, and the City of Busan and private facilities, resulting in more than 650 deaths. Currently, a total of 111 government compensation lawsuits have been filed by 652 victims of the Brothers Home. Of the 111 cases, 71 are first-instance cases (292 plaintiffs), 27 are appellate cases (200 plaintiffs), and 13 are Supreme Court cases (160 plaintiffs).
The 'Seongam Academy incident' refers to the forced detention of over 4,700 children at the private facility Seongam Academy, according to local government ordinances around 1950, where they faced forced labor, assaults, and other harsh treatment, leading to more than 29 deaths and numerous disappearances. Currently, 42 government compensation lawsuits have been filed by 377 victims of Seongam Academy, which includes 21 first-instance cases (147 plaintiffs), 18 appellate cases (198 plaintiffs), and 3 Supreme Court cases (32 plaintiffs).
Until now, the Ministry of Justice has consistently appealed regarding the government compensation lawsuits related to the Brothers Home and Seongam Academy, citing the need for establishing consistent compensation standards. However, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals made by the state in seven cases related to the Brothers Home during the period of March to July. In light of this, the Ministry of Justice viewed the Seongam Academy incident as similar to the Brothers Home case and determined that the suffering of the victims due to the litigation should not continue, leading to this decision.
Minister Jeong Seong-ho said, 'Based on the judgment that sufficient compensation should be provided to citizens whose human rights have been violated due to unlawful acts of the state, we decided to withdraw and forgo state appeals to more faithfully and swiftly realize the rights of the victims.'