Two years after becoming president in 1998, Kim Dae-jung, himself a pro-democracy activist who endured death threats, torture, imprisonment and house arrests, launched a commission to restore the honor of former activists and compensate them for their sufferings under the authoritarian governments. 

The Commission for Democratization Movement Activists’ Honor-Restoration and Compensation played a key role in shedding new light on many past cases and redressing the wrongs committed by the military dictatorships that ruled until the early 1990s.

But the work to correct the past misdeeds and make amends to the victims was not without its problems. In some cases, the review panel, government and even the court were too generous and inclusive in restoring honor and providing financial compensation.

One such example is the case of the 46 student protesters who were recognized by the panel as pro-democracy activists even though their violent antigovernment demonstrations resulted in the deaths of seven police officers at a Busan university in 1989. There were more cases in which unrelated criminal convictions were justified in the name of the democratization movement.

Last week, the Supreme Court put a halt to this trend by separating criminal convictions based on labor activism from convictions based on radical socialist activism.

The case involved a former labor activist who was convicted first for illegal union activities while working at a plant of the now-defunct Daewoo Electronics in the early 1980s. Later, he was convicted again, this time for engaging in socialist activities.

The democratization review panel recognized only the first conviction, against which the former activist asked the court to rescind the panel’s decision not to include his convictions on charges related to his participation in socialist organizations like the Pan-National Alliance for Korea’s Unification, which is banned in South Korea for its pro-North Korea activities.

The lower courts ruled in favor of the plaintiff, but the top court sent the case back to the appeals courts, ruling that only his conviction for what he did as a labor activist should be recognized as related to the democratization movement.

It is the nation’s duty to recognize and compensate those who suffered to achieve democracy in the country, but separating real patriots from followers of an outdated ideology like socialism and failed regimes like North Korea is no less important.