Ministry of Justice to Re-establish Pro-Japanese Property Investigation Committee and Push for Abolishing Statutes of Limitations on State Violence Crimes

The Ministry of Justice is pushing to re-establish the Pro-Japanese Property Investigation Committee to reclaim assets from pro-Japanese anti-national collaborators and enact a special law to abolish criminal statutes of limitations for state violence crimes.

It also plans to overhaul the crime of breach of trust to ease managerial burdens on businesses, while strengthening systems to protect victims of dating violence and prevent the recidivism of juvenile crimes.

The Ministry of Justice announced today (the 5th) that it reported these plans as part of its "2026 Second-Half Policy Agenda" to President Lee Jae-myung.

First, the Ministry decided to re-establish the Pro-Japanese Property Investigation Committee to recover assets unfairly accumulated by pro-Japanese anti-national collaborators.

Following the previous enactment of the Pro-Japanese Property Confiscation Act to reclaim such assets, the ministry plans to continue investigating and recovering relevant properties through the committee starting in the second half of the year.

For state violence crimes, the ministry will push to enact a special law on statutory limitations for state violence crimes, which would abolish criminal statutes of limitations and apply special exceptions regarding statutory limitation periods under civil law to victims' rights to claim damages.

The ministry will also overhaul legal systems to revitalize the economy.

The Ministry of Justice has decided to begin a full-scale overhaul of the crime of breach of trust, which has long been criticized for its ambiguous elements that dampen normal corporate management decisions.

Accordingly, the ministry plans to swiftly pursue alternative legislation to prevent any legal vacuum that might hinder the punishment of illegal corporate activities.

Plans are also underway to expand the class action system, currently limited to the securities sector, to other fields so that small-scale and numerous victims can more easily seek legal remedies.

To ensure the amended Commercial Act takes firm root in the field, follow-up measures such as revising the Enforcement Decree of the Commercial Act to introduce electronic general shareholder meetings will be carried out, alongside legal revisions requiring managers of non-apartment residential buildings, such as officetels, to disclose detailed maintenance fee breakdowns.

The crime victim protection system will also be reinforced.

The Ministry of Justice plans to push for legal revisions to include dating violence crimes under provisional measures currently applied to stalking crimes.

It will also develop a system to share the real-time location of offenders wearing electronic tracking devices with the police.

For drug offenders, in-depth interviews and recidivism risk assessments will be conducted within one month after probation begins, with management tailored by addiction severity levels.

The ministry also plans to expand drug-dedicated correctional facilities and the number of participants in rehabilitation programs.

Considering the high recidivism rates among juvenile offenders, specialized juvenile protection facilities separated from adults will be established, and a "K-Juvenile Crime Prevention Process" will be introduced, through which schools, police, and local governments will jointly handle everything from diagnosing the causes of delinquency to post-management.

Efforts to protect the human rights of migrant workers will include mandating pre-entry human rights education and conducting intensive monitoring of vulnerable workplaces.

In addition, immigration policies will be pursued to alleviate regional labor shortages.

A skilled seasonal worker visa for agriculture and fisheries will be introduced to allow seasonal workers with certain proficiency levels to stay in the country long-term, and a regional vitality small business employment special system will be implemented to make it easier for small business owners in depopulated areas to hire foreign nationals.

Furthermore, the National Forensic Hospital's artificial intelligence (AI) behavior analysis system will be expanded to detect abnormal behaviors of high-risk medical treatment custody inmates, and AI will be introduced across overall legal administration, such as the preliminary sorting of arriving foreign nationals.

Minister of Justice Jeong Sung-ho stated, "Through creative innovation, we will do our utmost to protect the daily lives of the public from crime, contribute to economic revitalization, and safeguard national interests."

(Photo provided by the Ministry of Justice, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.