Unification Minister Kwon Young-se speaks during a parliamentary inquiry into the Yoon Suk-yeol administration at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap

By Jung Min-ho

South Korea's 2019 decision to repatriate two North Korean fishermen against their will was unprecedented and a violation of the Constitution, Unification Minister Kwon Young-se said Monday.

Asked whether there have been any similar cases before and after the incident, Kwon said it was the only occasion when North Koreans were forced to leave South Korea despite their objection.

South Korea's Constitution says North Koreans should be treated as South Korean citizens. As a result, North Korean escapees are not even required to express their intention to defect to the South if they want to stay here, he added.

"If North Koreans say they do not want to return to North Korea, the ministry must accept them," Kwon said during a parliamentary inquiry into the Yoon Suk-yeol administration at the National Assembly in Seoul. "The decision to send them back was clearly wrong, which damaged the Constitution and its spirit."

The previous Moon Jae-in administration accused the fishermen of conspiring with a third man to kill their captain and 15 others on a boat before their escape to the South on Nov. 2, 2019. After a brief investigation, South Korean authorities sent the fishermen and their boat back to the North.

The accusation of murder was a chief justification of the deportation. Many people, including former National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong (May 2017-July 2020), defended the decision, saying it would be difficult to prosecute them under the South Korean legal system.

Kwon disagreed. He said no civilized country would send citizens to where they are almost certain to be killed just because they are criminals. Moreover, there was no fair trial for the fishermen, who should be regarded as innocent until proven guilty.

"Some people say they deserved be sent back to the North to protect our society, because they were criminals. It would not be acceptable in this civilized country," Kwon said "It would be tantamount to saying that individuals' human rights can be sacrificed for the sake of the whole society. It is a typical totalitarian thought."

Rep. Tae Yong-ho of the ruling People Power Party speaks during a parliamentary inquiry into the Yoon Suk-yeol administration at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday.

He also said it is unreasonable to claim that the fishermen cannot be prosecuted here, given that they can be separately interrogated and, if they really committed the murders, investigators would probably be able to make solid cases based on their confessions and evidence left on the boat among others.

Just last month in Seoul, a former North Korean spy received a 30-month prison sentence suspended for four years for playing a role in kidnapping a North Korean defector in China and sending him back to the North in 2010. Six years later, the former agent defected to South Korea and made the confession during an investigation by the National Intelligence Service, which eventually led to the conviction.

Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon agreed that North Korean defectors can be tried in South Korean courts.

"There was a North Korean convicted of a crime he committed overseas … [South] Korea is governed by laws. To restrict someone's freedom, there should be a legal basis," he said.

"The country has a judiciary system strong enough to prosecute criminals according to the laws."

Rep. Tae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to the South in 2016, said the heart of the matter is not whether the fishermen were criminals, but that the decision to deport them was "an unconstitutional crime" committed against Korean citizens.