South Korea’s Constitutional Court has struck
down a 60-year-old statute outlawing adultery
under which violators faced up to two years in
prison.
The nine-member bench ruled by seven to two
that the 1953 law was unconstitutional in a
judgement handed down on Thursday.
“Even if adultery should be condemned as
immoral, state power should not intervene in
individuals’ private lives,” said presiding justice
Park Han-Chul.
It was the fifth time the apex court had
considered the constitutional legality of the
legislation which had made South Korea one of
the few non-Muslim countries to regard marital
infidelity as a criminal act.
In the past six years, close to 5,500 people have
been formerly arraigned on adultery charges –
including nearly 900 in 2014.
But the numbers had been falling, with cases
that end in prison terms increasingly rare.
Whereas 216 people were jailed under the law in
2004, that figure had dropped to 42 by 2008, and
since then only 22 have found themselves behind
bars, according to figures from the state
prosecution office.
The downward trend was partly a reflection of
changing societal trends in a country where rapid
modernisation has frequently clashed with
traditionally conservative norms.
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