Enforcement Rule of the Act on the Acquisition of Land, etc. for Public Works and the
Compensation". However, the Government revised the Enforcement Rules of the Urban
and Living Environment Improvement Act in order to narrow the eligibility scope of the
compensation for relocation costs available to tenants, citing an objective of preventing
incidence of moral hazards, including fraudulent tenancy registration. This could make
a large number of tenants ineligible to such compensation. Considering that more than
70% of the residents in the New Town Development areas are tenants, it is feared that
the tenants might be relocated without being fully compensated.
64. NHRCK recommended in June 2009 that the Government, noting that the
compensation for relocation costs was intended for social security purpose, should
ensure that the rights and interests of tenants are fully guaranteed with regard to the
compensation for relocation costs, in revising the Enforcement Rules. Nevertheless, the
Government did not accommodate the NHRCK' submission and published the original
version with no modifications as final in August 2009.
3.
Forced Evictions and Forced Removal (235-238)
65. Forced removal and forced evictions in the course of urban renewal may take
diverse forms: insufficient prior measures, forced demolition of a house where people
are still living, physical clashes in the process of forced removal or forced removal at an
inappropriate time. There occur physical clashes among the residents who are for and
against the urban renewal project. It has been criticized that, with regard to these clashes,
the competent authority which is responsible for preventing and restricting such
violence is not active enough to perform its responsibilities. Meanwhile, the employees
of security service providers are sometimes dispatched to the site of urban renewal to
conduct forced evictions themselves, and this act might constitute a criminal offence as
it is beyond the permitted business scope of security service providers defined in the
Private Security Act. Some forced evictions and removal were carried out in the
wintertime or at nighttime, increasing the likelihood that the human rights of the
residents would be violated because of the untimeliness.
66. The Yongsan Tragedy of January 2009 is a good example of the ongoing problems
involved in urban renewal in this country, including reckless actions for forced evictions
and insufficient prior consultation and compensation. The tenants of store buildings in
Yongsan who were subject to eviction staged a demonstration in protest against the
19