By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter

The Constitutional Court will hold a public hearing Thursday to review whether adulterers should continue to face criminal charges.

The hearing is to be held after actress Ok So-ri filed a petition with the court last February against the application of criminal law to adultery. Ok is awaiting trial on adultery charges.

In Korea, adultery is illegal and people convicted of the charge face up to two years in jail. The law has been upheld as a so-called measure to protect the family and sexual morality.

But the actress said it should no longer be regarded as illegal, claiming that the law infringes upon the right of individual choice in sexual relations and the right to privacy.

The review will be the fourth of its kind. Previously, there were three rulings by the Constitutional Court in 1990, 1993 and 2001 when it concluded that it was constitutional to criminalize adultery.

Liberal judges have also filed a petition with the Constitutional Court to back their position that adultery should be dealt with by civil and divorce law, not criminal law.

Last July, Do Jin-gi, a judge from the Seoul Northern District Court, claimed, in his petition to the Constitutional Court, that adultery should be seen as a violation of trust and sexual morality between wife and husband.

``We tend to try to solve everything by law. But adultery is an issue, more about sexual desire, to which law cannot be simply applied,'' Do said.

Judge Lee Sang-ho from Daegu District Court also suggested that adultery be punished by the current civil law. Otherwise, he proposed that a new law be made to deal with it properly.

Opponents also argue that the society has changed so that criminal punishment of infidelity is inappropriate.

The average number of people found committing adultery was 1,200 year over the past four years, according to the Supreme Court, down from 2,000 in 1998 and 1999.

Last year, only 47 were jailed, with 592 given suspended terms. A total of 352 lawsuits were withdrawn through agreements between the couples husband.

But the government has maintained that the law is necessary to protect the family.

``The law is necessary to protect the family and to maintain sex morality and the monogamous system,'' Justice Minister Kim Kyung-han said in a statement to the Constitutional Court.

The minister emphasized that it was unnecessary to discuss whether adultery should be legal or illegal but it was necessary to discuss legislation to punish adulterers with a fine.

Most adultery suits are filed by wives against their husbands for committing adultery and the law was deemed necessary to protect them, but the Ministry of Gender Equality has started to see this differently.

``Now, we believe that it's time to think about the abolition of the law,'' Gender Equality Minister Byun Do-yoon said in a written opinion to the Constitutional Court.

Many civic groups for women also agreed that adultery should no longer be covered by criminal law but called for other countermeasures to protect women from unfair treatment in marriage and divorce.

``In our counseling cases, criminalizing sexual relations outside of marriage is often abused as a revenge against unfaithful wives by husbands and as a measure to get more compensation from husbands by wives during divorce,'' an official from the Korean Women's Association United said. The civic group called for other practical tools to protect women.

e3dward@koreatimes.co.kr