Law: "No Recovery of Benefits from Children Who Have Not Received Veterans' Benefits"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] A court ruling has determined that requiring the children of a spouse whose status as an independence merit recipient was revoked to return the veterans' benefits previously received from the state is an unfair measure.

According to the legal community on the 22nd, the Seoul Administrative Court Administrative Division 11 (Chief Judge Kang Woo-chan) ruled in favor of Mr. A and others in a lawsuit against the Seoul Regional Veterans Office seeking cancellation of an overpayment repayment order. The court stated, "The plaintiffs did not receive veterans' benefits and therefore are not subject to recovery under the Independence Merit Act," adding, "It is reasonable to view the recovery order against the plaintiffs as an abuse and deviation of discretion."

Mr. A's father was registered as an independence merit recipient in April 1968 but had his award revoked in August 2018 after it was revealed that he had falsely claimed another person's achievements as his own. Following the father's death in 1980, Mr. A's mother (the remarried spouse) received the veterans' benefits. After the mother's death in December 2014, the children of the father's previous spouse received the veterans' benefits until the award was revoked.

The Seoul Regional Veterans Office notified Mr. A and others in December 2018 to recover approximately 33.2 million won of veterans' benefits received by the mother due to the revocation of the award. Mr. A and others filed a lawsuit opposing this order, arguing, "We have never directly received veterans' benefits, and regarding inherited property, the mother received and consumed the veterans' benefits under a limited approval report, so these benefits cannot be subject to recovery."

The court focused on Article 35, Paragraph 1 of the Independence Merit Act, which was the basis for the Veterans Office's recovery order. The provision states that "if the reason for receiving veterans' benefits is retroactively nullified, the veterans' benefits received must be recovered." The court interpreted this wording to mean that, in principle, the person who received the benefits is the subject of the recovery order. In other words, recovery orders against heirs are not permissible.

The court explained, "Article 35 of the Independence Merit Act stipulates that if grounds for recovery are recognized, 'the veterans' benefits received by that person must be recovered,' but it does not explicitly include third parties such as heirs who did not receive the benefits as subjects of recovery orders." Furthermore, the court added, "If the defendant wishes to recover overpayments from heirs, it is sufficient to execute this by first removing the legal basis through an ex officio cancellation of eligibility and then obtaining a judgment for unjust enrichment recovery through civil litigation."