Incheon District Court on Tuesday ruled that the South Korean court should pay 100 million won ($76,000) in compensation to a man who was wrongfully arrested and jailed during the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising.
The civil suit was filed by a man who was arrested by police during the pro-democracy movement of May 18, 1980. The military junta Chun Doo-hwan had declared martial law as the anti-government movement spread across the country, and subsequently ordered the bloody crackdown on the continuing protests in Gwangju.
The plaintiff had been sentenced to two years in prison for his part in the protests, charged with violation of the Marshal Law Act. His sentence was later commuted to one year, and he served time at what is now the Southern Correctional Institution of Seoul. Fifteen years after his release, he demanded a retrial and the court in 1996 cleared him of all charges. It acknowledged that his actions were justified in resistance to the "crimes disrupting Constitutional order," referring to the actions by Chun's junta. He received a total of 94 million won in compensation from the government for the days he spent behind bars.
But the Constitutional Court in 2021 ruled that the bill on the compensation for victims of the Gwangju Uprising -- enacted in 1990 and stating that they cannot file charges against the government -- was unconstitutional, motivating the plaintiff to launch the civil suit against the government.
"There are no legal grounds to regard that the plaintiff and the government had reached a settlement," the court said, citing the aforementioned ruling by the Constitutional Court. "In the process of the crimes disrupting the Constitutional order, (the plaintiff) was arrested without a warrant and was physically assaulted. The government must compensate for the psychological damages inflicted upon him."
He requested to be paid 170 million won for himself and 120 million won for the rest of his family, but the court turned down the compensation for his family and ruled that he be paid only 100 million won.
