Victims who were dragged to the Samcheong reeducation camps and subjected to harsh treatment under the Chun Doo-hwan administration also won recognition of the state's liability for government compensation on appeal.
The Seoul High Court Civil Division 15-2 (High Court Judges Shin Yong-ho, Lee Byung-hee and Kim Sang-woo) on the 22nd dismissed the plaintiffs' appeal and upheld the first-instance ruling in a damages suit filed by eight Samcheong reeducation camp victims, including a person surnamed Kang, against the state. The first-instance court ordered the state to pay a total of about 136 million won, with awards ranging from 1.6 million won to 51.8 million won per victim, depending on individual circumstances.
On appeal, issues such as the calculation of compensation and the starting point for delay damages were addressed. The plaintiffs' attorney said after the ruling, "We argued in the appellate court to move up the starting point for delay damages to increase the amount, but everything was dismissed."
Kang and others filed a damages suit against the state in 2011 with MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society, saying they suffered human rights violations while confined in the Samcheong reeducation camps under the pretext of moral reformation education and compulsory labor service.
The Samcheong reeducation camp case refers to the Chun Doo-hwan administration in the 1980s establishing Samcheong reeducation camps within military units under Martial Law Proclamation No. 13 and confining about 40,000 people. Of these, more than 7,500 classified as having a risk of recidivism were subjected to protective custody for up to 40 months under the addendum to the Social Protection Act. Detainees were kept on military bases and forced to perform labor service and moral reformation education, during which they suffered human rights abuses including assault and forced labor.
In the past, even when Samcheong reeducation camp victims sued the state, there were cases where liability for compensation was not recognized on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired. However, after the Constitutional Court in 2018 found it unconstitutional in effect to uniformly apply the statute of limitations to victims of past state abuses, victims' claims for government compensation have continued.