EXCLUSIVE: Comfort Women Foundation Challenges S. Korean Court Damages Order

Seoul, March 6 (Jiji Press)–The foundation established by South Korea and funded by Japan to implement the 2015 bilateral accord over the issue of so-called wartime comfort women has challenged a South Korean court decision to allow the plaintiffs in a related case to collect damages from its funds, Jiji Press has learned. The Reconciliation and Healing Foundation filed the challenge on Tuesday, and it is expected to be contested in court, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs interviewed Thursday. The case stems from a ruling by Cheongju District Court in central South Korea in April last year ordering the Japanese government to pay 100 million won in damages to the plaintiffs, who are family members of former comfort women. The Japanese government did not participate in the lawsuit and has not complied with the damages order, citing the international law principle of sovereign immunity, which holds that one state does not submit to the jurisdiction of another state’s court. The plaintiffs argued that funds held by the foundation could be regarded as assets of the Japanese government and filed a lawsuit seeking to collect compensation from the foundation. Last month, Seoul Central District Court issued a compulsory mediation decision permitting collection, marking the first ruling to allow damages in a comfort women case to be recovered from the foundation’s funds. The deadline for filing an objection was Thursday. Under the 2015 bilateral accord, in which both countries agreed that the comfort women issue was “resolved finally and irreversibly,” the Japanese government contributed 1 billion yen to the foundation to support former comfort women. In 2018, the administration of then South Korean President Moon Jae-in decided to dissolve the foundation. The South Korean government has not proceeded with legal dissolution procedures, however, leaving the funds in limbo. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]