The Hankyoreh Editorial: “Why the 3rd Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC 3) Needs a Records Management Department.”
Above — Our AI representation of poor records management.
Translation via ChatGPT.
Some BOLDS and blue highlighting ours.
Posted to Paperslip on March 12, 2026.
Original Korean article published on February 23rd, 2026.
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The Hankyoreh
Editorial / Column – “Why”
Why the 3rd Truth and Reconciliation Commission Needs a Records Management Department
(Updated Feb 23, 2026 / Published Feb 23, 2026)
Kim Min-cheol | Director of the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities; Professor at Kyung Hee University’s Humanitas College
”On the 29th of last month, a revision to the Basic Act on the Settlement of Historical Issues for Truth and Reconciliation passed the plenary session of the National Assembly. To reduce administrative gaps, the 3rd Truth and Reconciliation Commission is expected to launch immediately on the 26th. As an activist working on historical justice issues, this is very welcome and gratifying news. However, the government support team’s current plan regarding staffing levels and organizational structure ahead of the third commission’s launch is deeply disappointing and worrying.
Despite the many controversies surrounding it, one important achievement of the second Truth and Reconciliation Commission was recognizing two groups as investigation targets: victims of institutional abuse symbolized by the Brothers Home case, and victims of overseas adoptions that in some cases amounted to quasi-human trafficking. Because these cases involve different types of harm, it is natural that investigators with specialized expertise are needed. It is understandable that administrative officials, accustomed to existing practices, would design the new structure based on the second commission. However, the expansion of investigative targets—such as overseas adoptees who face major language barriers—requires new policies.
The number of investigators is a concern, but an even bigger worry is that the government’s draft enforcement decree does not include an independent department responsible for managing records. In dealing with historical injustices, the role of records is extremely important.
First, records are both the starting point and the end point for uncovering the truth about victims’ suffering. A record is not simply “a single document.” It can be evidence that reveals the unjust death of a victim, and for surviving family members it can serve as a means of healing their wounds. Many families have fought for decades to find just one clue in a document—something that could reveal the unjust death of their parents and appeal to the world for justice. That search is the beginning of unsealing and releasing suppressed truths, and a process of restoring the meaning of lives that had been denied. Haven’t we often seen victims’ families pursue records with a persistence so intense that some might even call it obsession?
Second, finding records is important, but preserving and enabling the use of the records that have already been produced is equally essential for overcoming the past. After victims pass away, the only things that can testify about that era are the words and writings left behind. By passing on memories of the past, society can sound an alarm against injustices that might otherwise repeat. We often refer to this as the educational effect of confronting the past. Systematic record management is therefore necessary to pass the truth to future generations and educate them.
Third, records represent the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom achieved by a society. They can also be seen as an accumulation of cultural assets. The globally rising phenomenon of “K-culture” is also built upon such cultural foundations. Beneath it lie the countless words and writings of the dead that have finally emerged into the world after breaking through the seals that once suppressed them.
In fact, establishing an independent records management department is not a new idea. When the Truth Commission on Pro-Japanese Collaboration was launched in 2005, two things were achieved: expanding the proportion of investigative staff compared with previous commissions, and establishing an independent records management division. Later commissions—including the Commission on the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Property and the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission—followed this precedent. In the 2000s, thanks to the dedication of records management activists and the philosophy of President Roh Moo-hyun regarding archives, this became an institutionalized achievement.
At the end and beginning of each year, the (TRC) commission offices would become somewhat hectic. Each department had to organize review reports, decision documents, and evidence materials from completed cases and submit them with lists to the records management department. And that wasn’t the end of it. Records managers and department staff would carefully verify whether the transferred lists and materials were accurate and consistent. To busy investigators, the records staff may well have seemed like a particularly demanding group. But through this process, truth-seeking work—from discovery and production of records to their preservation—completed a fully integrated procedure. Even though later conservative governments erected barriers that limited the social use of these materials, it is not an exaggeration to say that the commissions established a model for systematically managing and preserving the records they produced.
Unfortunately, when the second Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC 2) was launched, this achievement was not continued. Given the precedent, many assumed it would naturally be followed. But surprisingly, the commission was created without any dedicated records management department at all.
Properly inheriting the achievements built through enormous social cost is also a responsibility of activists. This is not merely a matter of creating one additional department. It is tied to a larger question: whether Korean society—and the international community dealing with historical justice—are truly practicing the norms they claim to uphold. Recognizing the seriousness of this issue, I hope policymakers step in to resolve the problem before it is too late. Surely we should not repeat mistakes that are so plainly visible.”