After the internal reform of 2009, contested cases of donations fell to almost zero.
by Patricia Duval
Article 6 of 7. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, article 4, and article 5.
The Compliance Declarations
The High Court found that after the Shinsei Case, the Church issued two internal notices to church leaders nationwide, in February and March 2009, known as the Compliance Declarations.
They stated, among other things:
Commercial sales activities were outside the purposes of the religious corporation, and leaders must not be involved in them.
Donations should not be linked to ancestral curses or karmic burdens.
Donations must respect the voluntary intent and financial circumstances of believers.
The recipient of donations must be clearly identified as the Church.
These instructions led to a dramatic decline in the number of civil lawsuits. Among the civil lawsuits in which the Church was the defendant, the last case in which a claim was upheld related to facts dating back to September 2014.
However, to substantiate an alleged harm to public welfare that occurred after that date, the High Court considered all the settlements entered into by the Church as additional evidence of tort.
The settlements
The Court devoted a whole section to the review of settlements entitled: “Cases in which it is found that improper donation solicitation conduct was carried out by the Church’s believers in or after 2010”.
The Court considered all settlements—whether recommended by the courts or entered into outside of civil proceedings—as evidence of torts committed by the Church, concluding that the harm caused to the public welfare was significant and had persisted in recent years.
To the argument by the defense counsel that the Courts recommended in-court settlements due to the lack of evidence, the High Court responded: “Even if the Settlements in this case were reached as a result of active settlement recommendations by the court before which the action was pending, that does not mean that, from the fact that such settlements were reached, it is impermissible to recognize that the Church’s believers engaged in Improper Donation Solicitation Conduct constituting tortious conduct and that the Appellant therefore bears liability for damages.”
This is merely an assumption on the part of the Court, which does not establish the alleged continuation of tortious conduct.
Furthermore, the out-of-court settlements reached by the Church in an effort to appease public opinion—at a time when the media was waging a relentless campaign to portray it as a criminal organization—cannot be considered evidence of tortious conduct either.
After reviewing the settlement agreements, the High Court concluded that “it cannot be denied that there is a possibility” of tortious conduct.
And although this is based on mere speculation, the Court included all claimants covered by these agreements in the total number of “victims” and in its assessment of the compensation paid for harm to the public welfare.
Measures of implementation of the Compliance Declarations
The Court also questioned the efficiency of the Compliance Declarations and the measures taken by the Church, as well as the Church’s real intention to comply with them.
The Court devoted 30 pages (beginning on page 56 of the English version) to the measures adopted by the Church to implement the declarations of compliance: distribution and posting of the declarations of compliance throughout all levels of the Church nationwide, adoption of guidelines and standards for evangelism activities, codes of conduct, administrative circulars, pastoral regulations, etc., in 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2022, and 2023.
To invalidate all these measures—which were intended not only to provide guidelines but also to oversee their implementation over the past seventeen years—the Court held that their sole purpose was to avoid civil lawsuits and dissolution, and that the continuation of abusive fundraising practices was inevitable because it stemmed from the Church’s budget itself.
Root cause of improper solicitation: the budget
The Court stated that the “root cause” of the improper donation solicitation was the setting of numerical targets that could not be achieved through methods and modes of solicitation remaining within the bounds of what is socially acceptable.
Among the civil lawsuits in which the Church was the defendant, the facts underlying the most recent case that resulted in a judgment finding tortious conduct date back to September 2014.
In the absence of any proven tortious conduct over the past twelve years, the Court explained that the methods used had exceeded socially acceptable bounds due to the sheer amount of the donations.
Given that the amounts of the donations were considered too high under “social norms,” the Court concluded that pressure must have been exerted on the donors: “Moreover, because the Improper Donation Solicitation Conduct found in the Final Judgments in this case imposed substantial economic burdens and mental suffering on the Target Persons, it is difficult to think that the Target Persons would readily accede to such solicitations, and it is easily foreseeable that they would offer strong resistance. It is therefore difficult to think that believers engaged in such Improper Donation Solicitation Conduct spontaneously, without any prompting by others. It is rational to infer that the believers engaged in the Improper Donation Solicitation Conduct found in the Final Judgments in This Case—conduct involving methods and manners that exceeded the bounds of social acceptability—because they were subject to strong pressure to achieve levels of donations and sales of goods that could not be attained by solicitation conducted in methods and manners remaining within socially acceptable bounds.”
The Court therefore relied on mere speculation to assert that such a level of donations could not be achieved through socially acceptable means.
Based on this unsubstantiated assumption, the Court then criticized the Church for continuing to set numerical targets in its annual budget.
The defense attorney explained that a budget was not a “donation target” and that this budget—which was based on budget proposals prepared by pastors using the previous year’s results from their respective local organizations—was not unilaterally allocated by the Church headquarters to each local organization.
The Court responded that, even in this case, it is “difficult to deny that the amount of donation revenue included in the budget effectively serves as a numerical target for donations”—even though, in this case, it implies that the local churches set these numerical targets.
Yet, if the budget is determined locally, it necessarily means that the Church religious corporation is not the “root cause” of the “improper solicitation of donations.”
Then the Court, although admitting that it is theoretically permissible for a church to solicit donations pursuant to numerical targets, held that the issue arises if the numerical targets are not set at an appropriate level.
The Court noted that the Church’s “budgeted donation income, even after 2010 following the Compliance Declaration, continued at approximately the same level as before” and inferred that undue pressure must have been exerted to meet the Church’s budget in recent years.
In other words, the Court’s main criticism of the Church is that it maintained its donations and revenue at their previous levels—amounts that, in and of themselves, allegedly led to tortious solicitation practices.
Based on this reasoning, the Court concluded that the Church had not taken sufficient measures to prevent “improper solicitation of donations” from recurring (“Preventive Measures Against Improper Donation Solicitation Conduct”).
Root cause of improper solicitation: the religious doctrine
The Court then criticized the Church for claiming to have ended the “karma talks” when, in reality, it continued to engage in similar religious practices.
The Court discussed the Ancestors’ Liberation ceremonies held in Korea, during which offerings are collected.
It portrayed the belief that ancestors must be liberated from their karma as a means of instilling fear in the faithful, thereby encouraging them to make offerings.
This is yet another example of the theory of mental manipulation and constitutes an unacceptable interference in the realm of religious beliefs.
The High Court concluded that, since the Church did not amend its religious doctrine, the harm to public welfare was likely to happen again.
Based on the findings and reasoning set forth above, the Court found that “the root cause of the improper donation solicitation conduct lies in the Church itself.”
It held that “it is reasonable to infer” that members of the Church continued to engage in tortious conduct of which the courts were unaware: “While the number of such cases and the amount of damage are not necessarily clear, in light of the fact that, even after the Compliance Declaration, the Appellant continued to set budgeted amounts (target amounts) for donation income at the same level as before (…), it is reasonable to infer that the number of instances of Improper Donation Solicitation Conduct and the amount of damage remained at about the same level as before even after the Compliance Declaration.”
This assumption of unknown damage further inflated the harm that the Church allegedly caused to the public welfare: “Given that, as stated in above, Improper Donation Solicitation Conduct by the Church’s believers continued even after the Compliance Declaration, so that the damage is not limited to the foregoing, and given also that such property damage could affect not only the target persons themselves but also their families and relatives, the consequences of the Improper Donation Solicitation Conduct by the Church’s believers must be said to be grave.”
The High Court concluded that therefore the conditions for dissolution set forth at Article 81.1 of the Religious Associations Act were fulfilled: “In light of the impropriety of the purpose, the maliciousness of the mode of conduct, and the gravity of the consequences as described above, the acts described above by the Church’s believers must be held to constitute ‘acts clearly found to substantially harm the public welfare ’ within the meaning of Article 81, paragraph (1), item (i) of the Religious Associations Act.”
Patricia Duval is an attorney and a member of the Paris Bar. She has a Master in Public Law from La Sorbonne University, and specializes in international human rights law. She has defended the rights of minorities of religion or belief in domestic and international fora, and before international institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union, and the United Nations. She has also published numerous scholarly articles on freedom of religion or belief.
