The high court in Busan, the port city in southeastern South Korea, ordered the Japanese company to pay $71,800 to each of the five Koreans.
It was the second such ruling this month. On July 10, the Seoul High Court ordered Nippon Steel Sumitomo Metal Corp. of Japan to pay $89,800 to each of four South Korean plaintiffs in unpaid salaries and compensation for forced labor during the colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.
Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi planned to appeal the decisions.
The Busan court said in its ruling that Mitsubishi forced the South Korean plaintiffs to “toil in poor conditions in Hiroshima and yet failed to pay wages,” and “did not provide proper shelters or food after the dropping of an atomic bomb” there in 1945.
The five plaintiffs in the Mitsubishi case were all deceased and their families represented them.
The rulings against Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi were the first in favor of South Koreans in a 16-year-old legal battle waged in Japan and South Korea, and it could trigger similar lawsuits from other victims or their families. At least 1.2 million Koreans were forced to work for Japan’s war efforts in Japan, China and elsewhere, according to historians here.
“While we have not confirmed the details of the ruling, we understand that all such claims between the two countries, including compensation for interned laborers, have been completely and conclusively settled under official state agreements,” a spokesman for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said in a statement.
“A ruling that goes against these agreements has no legitimacy and is truly regrettable,” he said.
South Korean victims first filed compensation lawsuits in Japan in 1997. Japan’s top court ruled against them in 2005, saying that the issue of compensation for forced labor was closed under the 1965 treaty that normalized diplomatic ties between Japan and South Korea. The government in Tokyo maintained the same position.
The victims had suffered setbacks in their lawsuits in South Korea, as the local judges honored the rulings by the Japanese courts. But in a landmark decision in May last year, South Korea’s Supreme Court overturned their rulings and sent the cases back to the lower courts, saying that the Japanese courts’ verdicts went against the constitution of South Korea and international legal norms.
“We have two different rulings on the same cases in two different countries,” said Chang Wan-ick, a lawyer and leading advocate for South Korean victims. “The civilized societies around the world will know which ruling is right: Mobilizing civilians for forced labor for a war of aggression is wrong.”
If the rulings against Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi are upheld by the Supreme Court in South Korea and the Japanese companies still refuse to compensate the plantiffs, the victims could try to have the Japanese companies’ assets in South Korea confiscated — a move that would certainly escalate into a diplomatic spat.
On Tuesday, the South Korean bar association urged the Japanese companies and Tokyo and Seoul to avoid such a confrontation by establishing a foundation to compensate the victims and promote “historical reconciliation.”
The Foreign Ministry of South Korea said it was closely monitoring the civil cases.
About 300 Japanese companies currently in operation were believed to have used forced labor during the colonial period, according to South Korean officials.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/world/asia/south-korean-court-tells-japanese-company-to-pay-for-forced-labor.html?partner=rss&emc=rss