Court rulings have emerged lately in South Korea that have upset civic group supporters of liberal President Moon Jae-in's government over wartime labor compensation and "comfort women," two issues that have bedeviled relations between Japan and South Korea.

According to one judicial source, what lay behind those rulings, which dismissed Korean plaintiffs' demand for damages from Japanese government and corporations, was judges' personal "conviction" that is unrestrained by the political winds of the day.

On Monday, the Seoul Central District Court dismissed a damages lawsuit brought against 16 Japanese companies by 85 plaintiffs and their bereaved families who say they were made to work for them during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.