A Seoul court has dismissed the government’s litigation against the family of the late former President Chun Doo-hwan, in which it sought to confiscate the family’s home in place of Chun’s unpaid forfeiture.

The Seoul Western District Court on Friday dismissed the lawsuit filed against eleven people who had invested in the house in Seoul’s Yeonhui area, including Chun’s wife, Lee Sun-ja, and his eldest son, Jae-guk.

The ruling comes three years and four months after the prosecution filed the suit in the belief that the house may have been the late former president’s property under a borrowed name.

Chun died just one month after the filing.

The court said the government’s claim to the forfeiture ceased to exist upon Chun’s death in November 2021 and that liabilities from court rulings, in principle, are not subject to inheritance.

Chun, whose life sentence for insurrection and bribery and the accompanying order to forfeit 220-point-five billion won, or around 153 million U.S. dollars, were upheld by the Supreme Court in 1997, had not paid some 86-point-seven billion won at the time of his death.

The prosecution said it plans to review the latest ruling carefully before deciding whether to appeal.