Lawmaker pushes bill to bar state violence perpetrators stripped of honors from national cemeteries

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Jo Gye-won, who represents Yeosu's second district in South Jeolla Province and sits on the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee, on Wednesday introduced a bill to amend the Act on the Establishment and Operation of National Cemeteries. The legislation would bar people whose state honors have been revoked under Article 8, Paragraph 1 of the Awards and Decorations Act from burial in national cemeteries, and would allow the minister of Patriots and Veterans to order the families of those already interred to relocate the remains to a site outside a national cemetery.

Under current law, burial in a national cemetery may be denied only in limited circumstances — such as when a person falls under the exclusion criteria for persons of national merit, or when they have received a sentence of at least one year of imprisonment for a crime under the Military Criminal Act.

The government recently revoked 198 state commendations awarded to 167 perpetrators of state violence — including those involved in the Dec. 12 military mutiny, the violent suppression of the May 18 pro-democracy uprising, and fabricated espionage and torture cases — based on findings by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and retrial acquittals.

Because revocation of honors is not itself listed as grounds for exclusion from national cemetery burial, a legal gap has existed that allows perpetrators of state violence to be interred — or to remain interred — in national cemeteries, prompting calls for urgent legislative action.

The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans currently lacks explicit statutory authority to compel relocation, so it has been working through consultations with bereaved families to arrange transfers to sites outside national cemeteries. In cases where families continue to refuse, the ministry has been taking limited measures — such as removing headstones and leveling burial mounds — after giving advance notice to the families.

The bill addresses these legal gaps by explicitly excluding from national cemetery burial anyone whose honors have been revoked under the Awards and Decorations Act, and by empowering the minister of Patriots and Veterans to order families to relocate remains to a site outside a national cemetery when honors are revoked after interment.

"Those who violated the lives and freedoms of citizens through state violence must no longer be accorded the nation's highest honors," Jo said. "National cemeteries are sacred grounds honoring those who dedicated themselves to the constitutional values and democracy of the Republic of Korea. It is consistent with justice and common sense that burial there should not be permitted for individuals whose state honors the government has already revoked."

Jo added that the bill "is not aimed at any specific individual, but at establishing the principles and consistency of the national honors system," and expressed hope that the National Assembly would review and pass the legislation promptly "to preserve the dignity of national cemeteries and pass on a correct understanding of history to future generations."