August 15, 2023 marks the 78th anniversary of South Koreathe country’s independence from Japanese colonial rule. President Yoon Suk-yeol and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are devoting extraordinary efforts to revive relations since the deep freeze under the regime Moon Jae In And Shinzo Abe administrations.
The bilateral summit on March 16, 2023 was the first between the leaders of South Korea and Japan in twelve years. The previous summit took place on December 18, 2011 between Lee Myung-bak and Yoshihiko Noda.
Yoon and Kishida want to unite their democracies against what they perceive as threats from the country’s surrounding autocracies. Russia, North KoreaAnd China. On August 18, 2023, the two leaders will meet the US president Joe Biden for the first ever autonomous summit between the leaders of UNITED STATES, Japan and South Korea. They also plan to regularize the trilateral summit and keep it every year.
A problem that divides two nations
Nearly eight decades have passed since South Korea’s independence. However, despite Yoon and Kishida’s reconciliation efforts, disputes over the history of the colonial era still divide the two nations. The most vexing and the most incendiary remains the comfort women issue.
South Korean public opinion, like left-wing governments (including the Moon administration, 2017-22), rejects Tokyo’s apologies and compensation as insufficient. These include the Asian Women’s Fund of 1994 and the Accord of 2015. Diaspora and civic groups continually fight for the installation of new comfort women statues overseas. The American city of Philadelphia is the last to do so, in 2022.
Breaking the stereotype
The aftermath of this historic battle culminated in the seemingly perpetual criminal trial of the Sejong University professor. Yuha Park. His book, Comfort Women of the Empire (Roots and Leaves, 2018), published in South Korea in 2013 and Japan in 2014, sought to rediscover the lost voices of former comfort women and open new doors of discussion.
Park met with several comfort women and examined testimonies, historical records and books. This led her to conclude that the stereotype of South Korean comfort women as victims of Japanese atrocities ignored the diversity of experiences. Some women felt a sense of camaraderie with the Japanese troops. Others displayed varying degrees of patriotism since the residents of Chosun were part of the Japanese empire.
Park also devoted an entire chapter to critiquing the work of comfort women advocacy groups. Their adherence to conventional discourse and their quest for “legal reparations” from Tokyo have stifled progress and meaningful negotiations. Given the lack of documented evidence that Japan directly participated in forced recruitment, they took the wrong approach. Instead, Park wrote, comfort women advocates should focus on “moral reparations” rather than legal responsibilities.
Censorship of Park’s book
Although Park’s book received favorable reception in Japan, it quickly became controversial on the Korean Peninsula. But instead of academic or public criticism, criticism has turned to civil and criminal prosecution. Nanum House and nine former comfort women filed a police report and civil action against the author and publisher.
In total, 109 different parts of the book, many of which contained criticism against the Korean board defense group, were deemed “false” by the plaintiffs. The book was later reissued with 34 areas censored after the court partially granted the injunction.
In November 2015, the Seoul Eastern Procuratorate indicted Park for criminal defamation. The prosecution alleged that nearly three dozen expressions in his book contradicted what is generally accepted as “historical truth.”
The trial court, however, found that most of the statements in question were expressions of opinion. She also found that other statements were unrelated to the comfort women’s honor or did not specify the complainants. Additionally, the court avoided ruling on the historical accuracy of Park’s book and acquitted her of all charges.
But on October 27, 2017, the High Court overturned this verdict and fined Park 10 million KRW (US$8,900) for tarnishing the victims’ reputations and causing them psychological distress. Park’s appeal to the Supreme Court, which she filed three days later, is still pending.
A judicial error
A South Korean legal expert, professor at Inha University Law School Hong Sungkee, considered the High Court’s reversal to be a miscarriage of justice. In 2020, Hong published an article in the Law Review arguing that the court’s reversal significantly exceeded the bounds of reasonable restraint and essential consideration in criminal proceedings.
Contacted by a reporter, Hong also speculated on the prolonged delay (nearly six years) by the Supreme Court in reaching a final decision.
He said: “I strongly suspect that a reporting judge recommended to the Supreme Court justices that the case be sent back with the intention of acquitting Park. Yet the presiding judge, Roh Jung-hee, probably did not have the judicial courage to make this appeal for fear of backlash, mainly from Park. “The left-wing nationalist community. That said, given the merits of this case, Roh will have no choice but to be remanded in custody before her term expires next year.”
South Korean courts are buying time
Park’s ongoing Supreme Court trial has also put another case in limbo. This one is against the former Yonsei University professor Lew Seok Choon. He was indicted in 2020 for claiming that comfort women took on their roles “half-willingly and half-heartedly.”
In Lew’s case, the prosecution sought a sentence of a year and a half in prison for, among other things, challenging the narrative of forced kidnappings of Korean comfort women. At a trial hearing in March 2023, the presiding judge explained that the case should be tried following Park’s Supreme Court ruling.
On this, Hong argues: “The district court should make a judgment based on merit, regardless of the ongoing case against Park in the Supreme Court. The extension in Lew’s case seems simply a tactical move to buy time. »
Devastating tests
For supporters of academic freedom, judicial extension evokes the legal dictum: “Justice delayed is justice denied” (William Gladstone, 1868). Every day of delay and failure to close results in additional financial and emotional costs for defendants. He warns other scholars and intellectuals that dealing with sensitive historical topics risks devastating civil and criminal trials.
A not guilty verdict would not, and should not, protect principled dissidents – or ordinary Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists – from public reprimands. But it allows all citizens to participate in public debate and challenge the dominant narratives of their society, without fear of crippling fines or imprisonment.
The need for open and rational debate
The future of public discourse in South Korea remains uncertain. Following his right-wing predecessors (Lee Myung-bak, 2008-13 and Park Geun-hye, 2013-17), President Yoon Suk-yeol could once again amplify the threat from communist North Korea and vigorously punish pro-North speech, thus shifting public animosity from Japan to North Korea. Some critics claim he already does it.
The normatively superior path is a principled liberalization of public discourse. This means legal reforms to allow the free distribution and discussion of North Korean propaganda. It is also necessary to appoint non-politicized judges who will refrain from using the law to repress ideological opponents, whether pro-communist or pro-colonial.
Individual liberty is inextricably linked to informed public discourse and careful policymaking. Reduce legal restrictions on public speech and encourage culture of open and rational debate empower citizens of democratic South Korea and Japan to develop nuanced and informed viewpoints and support corresponding policies.
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Authors: Joseph Yi And Kenji Yoshida
