End of ‘debt torture’ of Inhyukdang victims… Government Accepts Reconciliation Recommendation

The government has decided to accept the court’s recommendation for reconciliation in relation to the ‘return of compensation’ for victims of the People’s Revolutionary Party (People’s Revolutionary Party) Reconstruction Committee case. With this decision, the victims of the Inhyuk Party are exempted from interest among the reparations to be returned to the state.

The Ministry of Justice held a meeting with the Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office and the National Intelligence Service today (20th) and announced that the Seoul High Court decided to accept the reconciliation recommendation issued by the Inhyukdang victim Lee Chang-bok and the government last month.

Previously, the Seoul High Court had issued a reconciliation recommendation, stating that if Mr. Lee pays about 500 million won of the principal to be returned to the state in installments, about 960 million won in interest, which he was charged at an annual rate of 20%, will be exempted.

At that time, the Ministry of Justice and others raised an objection to the two recommendations for reconciliation, saying that a legal review was necessary.

In response, Minister of Justice Han Dong-hoon said, “The so-called ‘give and take’ process has occurred due to the exceptional circumstances of the change of precedent.

The National Intelligence Service, the agency responsible for litigation, also said, “We have proactively reviewed this case that the previous government has not been able to resolve and actively took the position to accept the reconciliation recommendation.” .

Lee served 8 years in prison for the Inhyukdang case in 1974, and was acquitted in a retrial in 2007.

In 2009, through a lawsuit for damages, we received a total of KRW 1.09 billion from the government, including damages and interest.

However, two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that the calculation of the interest on the indemnity was wrong, and ordered half of the refund to be returned.

Mr. Lee has not been able to repay the money so far, and in the end he is charged 20% interest every year, and the interest alone is close to 1 billion won.

In the end, even his house was auctioned off, and in 2019, Mr. Lee filed an appeal to deny the state’s compulsory execution, and today the decision was made in three years.

Like Mr. Lee, there are a total of 76 Inhyukdang victims who have to return their indemnity due to a court ruling, of which 39 have not yet paid off their debts.

[사진 출처 : 연합뉴스]