This passage examines South Korea’s Special Act on the Investigation of Anti-National Activities under Japanese Imperialism and the confiscation of inherited assets from the descendants of so-called “pro-Japanese collaborators,” arguing that constitutional principles prohibiting retroactive legislation and punishment based on a relative’s conduct were cast aside in the face of anti-Japanese sentiment.
Focusing on the South Korean Constitutional Court’s ruling that upheld such confiscation as constitutional, it sharply criticizes the decision as a discriminatory judicial judgment aimed clearly and exclusively at Japan.

2019-03-02
This was a discriminatory judicial ruling that clearly targeted Japan alone, pandering to anti-Japanese public sentiment.

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
3-2. Examples of anti-Japanese acts by the South Korean judiciary.
3-2-1. A ruling that deemed constitutional the confiscation of assets from the descendants of “pro-Japanese elements.”
In South Korea, the “Special Act on the Inspection of Collaborations for Japanese Imperialism” (hereafter, the Special Act) was promulgated on March 22, 2004, and under this law a state body attached to the President, the “Committee for the Inspection of Property of Pro-Japanese Anti-National Collaborators,” was established.
That committee compiled a list of 168 individuals deemed to have cooperated with Japan during the annexation era, and decided to confiscate inherited properties, including land, worth 210.6 billion won from 168 descendants of those listed persons, on the grounds that their ancestors had “acquired” them through “pro-Japanese acts,” and to transfer them to state ownership (from Investigation of Pro-Japanese Properties: Its Four Years of Activity, published by the Committee for the Inspection of Property of Pro-Japanese Anti-National Collaborators).
This Special Act was a retroactive law of a kind unthinkable in a modern state, and it also violated Article 13 of the South Korean Constitution, which states as follows.
Paragraph 2: No citizen shall be restricted in political rights or deprived of property by means of retroactive legislation.
Paragraph 3: No citizen shall suffer disadvantageous treatment because of the conduct of a relative rather than his or her own conduct.
Nevertheless, on August 4, 2013, the South Korean Constitutional Court ruled that “it is constitutional to subject to confiscation property granted to persons who received titles from Japan.”
When the other party is Japan, even the Constitutional Court ignored the clauses of the constitution, approved retroactive legislation, and declared “constitutional” the confiscation of property on the basis of an ancestor’s actions.
This was a discriminatory judicial ruling that clearly targeted Japan alone, pandering to anti-Japanese public sentiment.
To be continued.