Lawyers group constitutional complaint over comfort women agreement

Posted on : 2016-03-28 17:19 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Suit argues that comfort women were unjustly excluded from agreement reached last year with Japan
Lawyers from MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society and former comfort women hold a press conference at Our House of Peace
Lawyers from MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society and former comfort women hold a press conference at Our House of Peace

On Mar. 27, MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society filed a complaint with South Korea’s Constitutional Court objecting to the comfort women agreement reached recently by South Korea and Japan’s foreign ministers. In the complaint, MINBYUN is representing 29 former comfort women and 41 relatives of the comfort women (both surviving and deceased).

MINBYUN contends that the comfort women agreement reached in Dec. 2015 is unconstitutional on the grounds that it infringes on human dignity.

“Through the agreement the South Korean government made it impossible for the former comfort women to ask Japan to compensate them for their damages. Since the agreement, the government has not made any effort to give the women the right to appeal to Japan for meaningful compensation,” MINBYUN said.

“This infringes upon the former comfort women‘s property rights, upon their dignity and value as human beings and upon their right to receive diplomatic protection from the state.”

Another problem, MINBYUN argued, is that the former comfort women were completely excluded from the negotiation process.

“The government left out the former comfort women, who had fought so long and so hard to make the Japanese government take legal responsibility, and even after the agreement it did not adequately explain the agreement to them,” MINBYUN said. The government’s attitude, the plaintiffs say, infringes upon victims‘ right to procedural participation and their right to know, both of which are guaranteed by the constitution.

By Seo Young-ji, staff reporter

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