Bongeunsa Temple Loses Second Trial in Lawsuit Over Return of Former KEPCO Site in Samseong-dong

Bongunsa Temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism lost again in the second trial of a lawsuit demanding the return of the former Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) site in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, which it previously owned.

Seoul Central District Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

According to the legal community on the 5th, the Seoul High Court Civil Division 17-1 (Presiding Judges Han Gyu-hyun, Cha Moon-ho, Oh Young-jun) ruled against Bongunsa in the appeal trial of the lawsuit filed against KEPCO for cancellation of ownership transfer registration, just as in the first trial.

This land originally belonged to Bongunsa, but in 1970, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry purchased it from the Jogye Order Secretariat. The land transferred by Bongunsa, including the KEPCO site, amounts to 330,000 square meters (100,000 pyeong).

In February 2020, Bongunsa filed a civil lawsuit against KEPCO. In court, Bongunsa argued that at the time the Ministry of Commerce and Industry purchased the land, the contracting party should have been Bongunsa, but since the transaction was made with the third party, the Jogye Order Secretariat, it was invalid. They claimed that under an oppressive social atmosphere, when Bongunsa opposed the land expropriation, the military pressured the Jogye Order Secretariat to forcibly expropriate the land.

However, the court did not accept Bongunsa’s argument. The first trial court acknowledged that the contracting party in the sales contract was the Jogye Order Secretariat, not Bongunsa, but since the head of the Jogye Order Secretariat also served as the head monk of Bongunsa at the time, it was effectively considered that Bongunsa was the contracting party.

The court also judged that the sold land could not be regarded as temple grounds (land belonging to the temple), and even if it were temple grounds, it was unrelated to the temple’s existence or purpose, so according to Supreme Court precedents, it could not be invalidated. Bongunsa appealed the first trial verdict, but the appellate court’s judgment was the same.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor Group won the bid for the site in September 2014 for 10 trillion won. Hyundai Motor Group is negotiating with the Seoul Metropolitan Government to build the ‘Global Business Complex’ (GBC) on the site.

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