South Korean lawmaker seeks to fix 5·18 compensation disparities

Representative Park Kyun-taek of the Democratic Party of Korea has raised concerns regarding significant disparities in mental damage compensation for victims of the 5·18 Democratization Movement. During a National Assembly audit of the Constitutional Court, Park noted that compensation amounts for similar damages can vary by up to four times depending on the specific court's ruling.

While a 2021 Constitutional Court decision allowed victims who had already received state compensation to separately claim damages for mental suffering, the lack of standardized calculation methods has led to inconsistent payouts. Because many of these rulings are finalized, victims who received lower amounts are legally barred from filing additional lawsuits to correct the imbalance.

To address this, Park introduced a proposed amendment to the ‘Act on the Compensation of Persons Related to the 5·18 Democratization Movement’. The bill aims to establish standardized criteria for calculating mental damage compensation. Under the proposal, the state would pay the difference between the newly calculated standard and the amounts already received through previous civil or criminal compensation rulings.