Shared to Paperslip - March 27th, 2025.
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“[Exclusive] "State to Compensate Victims of the Brothers Home Incident" Supreme Court's First Definitive Ruling
Input: March 27, 2025, 6:26 PM Updated: March 27, 2025, 7:25 PM Reporter: Lee Won-hee
The Supreme Court has issued its first ruling stating that the state must compensate the victims of the Brothers Home incident in Busan.
Today (27th), the Supreme Court's Civil Division 1 dismissed the Ministry of Justice's appeal against the second trial outcome of a state compensation claim filed by 13 victims of the Brothers Home incident, citing "no further proceedings."
The dismissal for lack of further proceedings confirms the second trial ruling unless there are constitutional violations or significant precedents.
Previously, the first trial, in January last year, recognized part of the compensation claim of 8 billion won made by the victims and ordered the government to pay a total of 4.53 billion won to the victims, with individual amounts ranging from 75 million won to 420 million won.
In the second trial, which also took place in November last year, both parties' appeals were dismissed, upholding the first trial's ruling in favor of some of the plaintiffs.
This ruling marks the first definitive precedent from the Supreme Court concerning state compensation claims related to the Brothers Home incident.
The Brothers Home in Busan was the largest collective facility in the country, operating from 1975 to 1987 under the guise of reforming vagrants, where forced labor, violence, and sexual assault were rampant, leading to the documented deaths of at least 657 individuals so far.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the Second Stage of Past Events concluded in August 2022 that the Brothers Home incident constituted a "human rights violation by state power" and recognized the state's responsibility.”