[Opinion] The Culprit of the Tragedy Must Apologize

State Acknowledges Responsibility for Humidifier Disinfectant Disaster
State Must Withdraw Appeal and Apologize to the People

The Seoul High Court ruling on the 6th that the state bears responsibility for the humidifier disinfectant disaster did not attract the social attention commensurate with its importance. As a journalist, I find it hard to shake off a sense of self-reproach that the ruling on former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk, issued around the same time, was treated as more significant news.

The result of the state not prioritizing the safety of its citizens and companies being obsessed with profit is 8,000 victims and over 1,200 deaths. Apart from war, I cannot recall a disaster with such a scale of casualties.

The significance of this second trial ruling lies in overturning the first trial ruling from seven years ago, which judged that only the companies that sold dangerous products causing harm were at fault and that “the state has no liability for compensation.” In the meantime, the victims’ lawyers submitted additional evidence, including documents from the Ministry of Environment investigated by the Social Disaster Special Investigation Committee (SDSIC), proving the state’s culpability.

The second trial court stated, “The state neglected its duty to sufficiently verify and manage the harmfulness, causing collective damage.” It was the state, not the companies, that approved polyhexamethylene guanidine (PHMG) and chloromethylisothiazolinone (PGH) in the disinfectants as “not classified as toxic chemicals” and then left them unattended for nearly ten years. The Ministry of Environment and others assumed these chemicals would be used only for packaging materials and did not conduct any review or safety verification for other uses. They even affixed the state certification ‘KC’ mark on these poisons.

We remember several disasters caused by the state’s failure to be present where it should be. The Sewol ferry disaster, Itaewon, and the humidifier disinfectant disaster starkly reveal at what point the state fails to protect the lives of its citizens.

So what must we do? We cannot remain stuck in the defeatism that this question, asked and answered every time a disaster repeats, is still valid. Considering the difficulty of an individual holding the state accountable and proving its responsibility, we must first focus on the decisive evidence presented through the SDSIC that overturned the first trial ruling.

In highly socially and politically controversial matters, when victims who disagree with the prosecution’s investigation results or the first trial ruling demand reinvestigation or the introduction of a special prosecutor, we must point out the state’s violence in easily labeling this as “politicizing the disaster” to evade responsibility.

Awake citizens must engage more fiercely in politics and struggle over the state’s raison d’?tre and issues directly affecting human life and human rights. Through that arduous and dangerous process, we have won the current level of human rights and democracy.

The more the state is required to take management responsibility, the more companies face a stronger regulatory environment. We must overcome a society where calls to deregulate economic activities affecting life or mental health to promote industry are publicized without much resistance. This is not an anti-market attitude.

We cannot grant a state that values money over life and speed over safety the status of an advanced country. We must strongly criticize a state that allows companies and public officials who caused the deaths of 1,200 people and inflicted suffering on 8,000 to continue their business and remain in public office.

The compensation awarded by the ruling cannot be all that we gain. The state should abandon its appeal. All heads of institutions responsible for this disaster and the state itself must apologize to the people.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.