Originally published on April 30, 2019, this chapter examines the long-standing relationship between South Korea’s lawyers’ group Minbyun and the Japanese Communist Party, as well as the legal and political network behind the wartime labor lawsuits.
It argues that Minbyun, a highly influential force in South Korean society, deeply penetrated the core of politics and the judiciary through the Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in administrations, and that its affiliated lawyers have been deeply involved in the wartime labor litigation.
By also citing cases such as the North Korean restaurant workers’ defection incident, the piece highlights how Minbyun has repeatedly acted in ways that can be seen as protective of North Korea, and sharply questions its political character, including its cooperative ties with the Japanese Communist Party.

2019-04-30
In China, the Japanese Communist Party would likely have had all related persons arrested for crimes such as treason against the state and would have been punished with severe penalties including death.
That it occupies seats in the national Diet as a political party is surely one of the world’s curiosities.

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.

The influence of the lawyers’ group “Minbyun.”

According to a report in the Chosun Ilbo dated January 13, 2006, Hemaru’s representative lawyer, Lim Jong-in, attended the 24th Congress of the Japanese Communist Party held in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, on January 11, 2006, as a guest, was introduced by Yasuo Ogata, director-general of the International Bureau, and was welcomed with applause.
It is not possible to know concretely the purpose of his participation or the activities conducted at that time, but one thing is beyond doubt.
The relationship between Hemaru’s lawyers and the Japanese Communist Party has become so long-standing that it can almost be described as that of old friends.
If one considers that, the recent visit by Hemaru’s lawyers to the Japanese Communist Party, and the Party’s declaration of cooperation, begin to look almost as though they had proceeded exactly according to plan.
In China, the Japanese Communist Party would likely have had all related persons arrested for crimes such as treason against the state and would have been punished with severe penalties including death.
That it occupies seats in the national Diet as a political party is surely one of the world’s curiosities.

The lawyers of Hemaru have another point in common besides belonging to the same law firm.
That is that they also belong to “Minbyun,” which is sometimes called a “power group” within South Korean society.

Minbyun.
Lawyers for a Democratic Society.
As its name suggests, is a group of lawyers oriented toward a “democratic society,” something like an association for deepening fellowship.
The number of lawyers belonging to Minbyun is about 1,200, amounting to no more than 5 percent of the more than 24,000 lawyers registered with the Korean Bar Association.
Its share of the total is not particularly high, but the reason its name appears so frequently in South Korean politics and social issues is that its influence and power are not something South Korean society can ignore.

Minbyun’s strength increased still further when as many as two lawyers from its ranks.
Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in.
Were elected president.
Lawyers affiliated with Minbyun successively occupied important government posts, and among lawyers there is even a saying, “If you want to get ahead, join Minbyun.”
That alone should give some idea of the scale of its power.

Moon Jae-in also worked in “Minbyun.”

The two presidents and Minbyun are in a relationship that cannot be separated.
It was also within Minbyun that Cheon Jeong-bae, a Hemaru-affiliated lawyer, deepened his ties with Roh Moo-hyun and created the ground for bringing him into Hemaru, and Moon Jae-in worked there from the early days of its founding until quite recently, serving from 1991 as the head of Minbyun in the Busan-Gyeongnam region.
During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, people from Minbyun rose to key political posts and Minbyun’s “human network” drew public attention, but when Moon Jae-in, one of the figures who rose at that time and one of Minbyun’s central figures, later became president, Minbyun once again drew public attention.

Needless to say, the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the wartime labor lawsuit were affiliated with Minbyun.
Of the fourteen justices who rendered the judgment, eight were appointed by President Moon Jae-in, himself from Minbyun.
Moreover, one of them was a former chair of Minbyun.
In that sense, it may be more exact to say that this lawsuit was undertaken not so much by “Hemaru” as by a group of lawyers affiliated with Minbyun.

By the way, one incident that vividly reveals the character of Minbyun is the case of the North Korean female restaurant workers who defected as a group from China to South Korea in 2016.
At the time, twelve North Korean women and a manager who had been working at a North Korean restaurant in China defected as a group to South Korea.
They were placed in a facility managed by South Korea’s intelligence agency.
North Korea claimed that they had been “kidnapped by the South Korean side” and strongly demanded their return to North Korea, but South Korea rejected the demand, saying it had been a defection of their own free will.

At that point Minbyun entered the scene.
Minbyun obtained “letters of authorization” from the families of the defectors in North Korea and sought a habeas corpus review from the South Korean government.
A habeas corpus review is a system by which a court is asked to determine whether someone is being unjustly confined in a particular facility, and it has mainly been used to救済 people unjustly confined in psychiatric hospitals and the like.
Minbyun sided with North Korea’s claim that “South Korea’s intelligence agency kidnapped the North Korean workers.”

This drew criticism from within South Korea, including from defectors already living there, that “they are trying to forcibly repatriate defectors to the North” and that “this is cooperation with North Korea.”
In the end, the review did not take place, but the fact that Minbyun moved on the basis of letters of authorization from North Korea became a major topic.

In other matters as well, Minbyun has spoken in ways that seem to defend North Korea, such as calling for the abolition of the National Security Law and for the normalization of the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea.
It is therefore noteworthy that lawyers affiliated with Minbyun are also deeply involved in the wartime labor lawsuits.