China and South Korea have agreed to take measures addressing the rising number of botched cosmetic surgeries. (Photo : Reuters)
South Korea virtually approved extramarital affairs on Feb. 26 as its Constitutional Court approved to decriminalize the controversial 60-year-old adultery law, reported the Agance France Presse.
South Korea's Constitutional Court presiding justice Park Han-Chul commented after his decision saying, "Even if adultery should be condemned as immoral, state power should not intervene in individuals' private lives."
In a unanimous 7-2 vote, the nine-member Constitutional Court decided that the state should not intervene in the personal lives of its citizens. The 1953 adultery law was aimed at protecting South Korea's traditional family values. The law imposes up to two years imprisonment to violators.
However, the law has rarely been used. Indeed only 5,500 people have been formerly charged under the law over the past six years, including some 900 in 2014. Court records also showed that the number of cases filed under the law is declining, with fewer cases ending in prison terms.
In 2004, at least 216 people were sentenced to jail for adultery in South Korea. This number significantly dropped to 412 in 2008, and only 22 have been found guilty ever since. State prosecutors attribute the decline in prosecution of adulterous individuals to the change in the attitude of the society where rapid modernization does not bode well with traditional conservative values.
Park added, "Public conceptions of individuals' rights in their sexual lives have undergone changes."
The decision was welcomed by civic leaders as said Ko Seon-Ju, an activist with the Seoul-based civic group Healthy Families said that 'Adultery must be censured morally and socially, but such a law is inappropriate in a modern society.'
Ko said, "It used to be an effective legal tool to protect female rights, but equal rights legislation has improved. Adultery is an issue that should be dealt with through dialogue between the partners, not by law."
The decision was a boon to condom manufacturers as shares of Unidus Corp., one of the world's largest condom manufacturers, jumped of 15 percent on news of the abolition of the adultery law, said Inquisitr.
