Can We Mourn Without Knowing the Cause of Death?

Read the Reporter's Notebook Series <Disasters and Tragedies, the Aftermath>
☞ [Reporter's Notebook ①] Search, Identification, and Prevention: The Duty of the State Shifted to Bereaved Families

Lee Soon-hee visited the Aricell plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, once again holding flowers. In front of the factory where the accident occurred, a memorial stone honors the 23 victims. Lee took out a wet wipe, cleaned the stone, and placed flowers on top of it. It had been about a month since she last visited the site. She said she chooses different flowers each time she visits. Thinking of the colors her daughter liked, she brings pink flowers on some days and white ones on others. Engraved on the memorial stone is a message promising to remember the victims and take action to prevent recurrence. On a blue ribbon sculpture a short distance away, a more direct statement was written: " Finding the truth is true remembrance. We will be with you until the end."

More than two years have passed since the accident, but legal proceedings surrounding the responsibility for the Aricell disaster are not yet over. Following the first trial and an appellate ruling, the case is currently pending before the Supreme Court. On September 2, the Aricell Disaster Response Committee and the Aricell Industrial Disaster Victims' Families Association visited the Supreme Court to submit a petition signed by 1,981 citizens. The petition called on the court to examine whether the appellate ruling contained any misinterpretation of legal principles contrary to the intent of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and related occupational safety and health regulations, and to deliver a judgment holding CEO Park Soon-kwan accountable commensurate with the deaths of the 23 victims.

Throughout the investigation and trials, authorities scrutinized not only the moment the fire broke out, but also how the Aricell plant had been operated. The prosecution's investigation revealed that 20 of the 23 workers who died in the fire were dispatched workers. Many of the deceased met with the accident shortly after joining the company. In August 2024, investigative authorities brought charges against those involved, including violations of management obligations to ensure safety and health, failure to implement evacuation-related safety measures, and illegalities in the dispatch process.

Employment relationships, safety training, and the company's overall safety management system all became facts that needed verification to explain a single person's death. The prosecution determined that Aricell officials, including General Manager Park Joong-eon, altered the internal layout of the factory during production and took actions that could negatively affect the evacuation environment. Investigators also concluded that the circumstances surrounding the installation and operation of locks on doors behind temporary partition walls compromised the evacuation conditions. During the investigation, questions were also raised about whether dispatched workers had received adequate safety and health training, and whether they were aware of the evacuation routes and emergency exit locations to use in an emergency. These issues of safety training and evacuation became central points of contention during the subsequent trials. The investigation and trials also addressed changes made to the production process after Aricell failed quality inspections for military-supplied batteries for April 2024. Investigative authorities determined that additional personnel were brought in to ramp up production, a process they deemed linked to the accident risk.

Not all facts uncovered during the investigation directly led to criminal liability. The court's judgment varied depending on what legal obligations the defendants had and to what extent a causal link between the violation of those duties and the accident was recognized. CEO Park Soon-kwan's defense also contested the charges in the appellate court, claiming factual errors, misapplication of legal principles, and unfair sentencing. In this case, determining the cause of the accident did not stop at identifying a single cause. It required examining, step by step, what decisions the company had made prior to the accident, what duties it was under, and whether it had actually complied with those duties.
In September 2025, the court of first instance sentenced CEO Park Soon-kwan to 15 years in prison, the heaviest penalty handed down since the enactment of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. The court recognized Park as a managing executive under the act and ruled that he failed to properly fulfill his duty to establish and implement a safety and health management system necessary for disaster prevention. Determining criminal liability in this case did not stop at who did what on the scene at the moment of the accident. Under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, the court also examined whether management had established and properly implemented a safety and health management system prior to the accident. The first-instance court attached significant weight to whether the company had fulfilled its safety management obligations before the incident. It also scrutinized whether the risks inherent in handling lithium batteries and the warning signs that appeared before the accident were adequately managed. Safety and health training as well as evacuation measures for dispatched workers also served as grounds for determining liability, and the court recognized the causal relationship between these violations of duty and the harm caused by the accident.

However, the court's judgment diverged on several issues. In April, the appellate court sentenced Park to 4 years in prison. The appellate court also recognized that Park was a managing executive under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and found him guilty of violating certain obligations to ensure safety and health. However, on certain duties to establish and implement a safety and health management system and duties to implement safety measures, its judgment differed from that of the first instance, which also led to a disparity in sentencing. A prime example is the emergency exit issue. The first-instance court found a violation of the obligation to install and maintain an emergency exit on the second floor of Building 3, where the accident occurred. In contrast, the appellate court ruled that while the current Rules on Occupational Safety and Health Standards mandate the installation of emergency exits in workplaces and buildings handling hazardous materials, they do not stipulate that a separate emergency exit must be installed on every floor. Consequently, it judged that there was no legal obligation to install a separate emergency exit on the second floor of Building 3. The prosecution appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that there was a misapplication of legal principles in these partial acquittals.
One of the key issues in sentencing at the appellate level was the settlement reached with the victims' families. At the time of the first trial, the defense had reached settlements with the families of 18 deceased victims, and partial settlements regarding two others. By the appellate stage, the scope of settlements expanded to include the families of all 23 deceased workers and all injured victims. The two courts also differed in how they reflected this fact in sentencing. While the first-instance court took the settlements into account with limited weight, the appellate court reasoned that limiting the consideration of settlements simply because bereaved families later demanded punishment could discourage defendants from actively seeking settlements to redress harm. As a result, the appellate court reflected the settlements much more favorably as a mitigating sentencing factor for Park than the first court did.

The issue is whether a settlement equates to full recovery of damages. Financial compensation for losses is undoubtedly one aspect of recovery. However, reaching a settlement with the company does not mean that the determination of the cause of the accident or the stance on punishing those responsible has been resolved. In fact, some bereaved families continued to demand punishment even after settling with the company, and the appellate court noted in its ruling that some families expressed a desire for punishment even post-settlement. The liability demanded by the Serious Accidents Punishment Act extends beyond individual compensation to victims. It encompasses the responsibility of employers to fulfill safety and health duties to prevent serious industrial disasters. In the end, the Aricell trial leaves behind the critical question of to what extent settlements with bereaved families should weigh in judging the gravity of such responsibility.
During her interview with the reporting team, Soon-hee repeatedly said she felt it was deeply unfair. It was not a fleeting expression of emotion. She voiced the same feeling when speaking of the appellate ruling and when walking around the site of the disaster once again. From the perspective of the families, viewing the accident as inevitable misfortune is an entirely different matter from seeing it as something that could have been prevented had someone fulfilled their duty. "It's just so unfair. I want to see this through to the very end because it feels so unjust... There is so much I couldn't do for my child and so much I feel sorry for, and sending her away like this is so heartbreakingly unfair, all the way to the end... I just want those who committed crimes to pay the price and for the remaining remains to be recovered."

The reason Soon-hee cannot let go of the trial results is not just because of the prison sentences. The judicial process is also a procedure that defines how her daughter's death is explained as an incident. The court determines, based on evidence and the law, whether the fire was an unavoidable accident, whether it could have been prevented had the company upheld its duties, and who bears responsibility and to what extent. Because the first-instance and appellate courts reached differing conclusions on several issues and the case is now before the Supreme Court, the legal verdict is not yet finalized. For Soon-hee, mourning is not merely remembering her daughter; it is also seeing through to the very end how her death is accounted for. This is why uncovering the truth and remembering the victims cannot be separated in a disaster. (To be continued in Part 3)

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※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.