The Supreme Court has ruled that the statute of limitations had not expired in a lawsuit filed in 2021 by families of victims of the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, seeking compensation for emotional damages from the state. The court found that the victims' families had faced an obstacle that made it practically difficult to exercise their rights before the Constitutional Court ruled the relevant legal provision unconstitutional.
According to the legal community on Thursday, the Supreme Court's Second Division (presiding Justice Eom Sang-pil) recently overturned a lower court ruling that had partially favored the plaintiffs in a damages lawsuit filed by 23 family members of May 18 victims against the state, and sent the case back to the Gwangju High Court.
The plaintiffs are family members of victims who were killed or injured by beatings and gunfire from martial law troops during the May 18 uprising. They received compensation in 1990 and 1991 under the former Gwangju Democratization Movement Compensation Act. After the Constitutional Court ruled in May 2021 that the relevant provision restricting claims for compensation for emotional damages was unconstitutional, they filed suit against the state in November of the same year.
The first trial recognized the claims of the victims themselves as well as the families' own rights to consolation money. The appellate court, by contrast, found that for some family members such as siblings, a three-year short-term statute of limitations had begun running around the date the compensation payment was decided, meaning the limitation period had already expired.
However, the Supreme Court ruled that "until May 27, 2021, the date of the unconstitutionality decision, the inherent right to consolation money held as a family member of those involved could not be exercised," adding that "since the suit was filed before three years had passed from that date, the statute of limitations has not been completed." The ruling follows the intent of an en banc decision on emotional damages related to the May 18 movement, handed down in January this year.
