By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter

The Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that a law that penalizes men for luring women into having sex with them under the "false" promise of marriage was unconstitutional.

The ruling overturns the court's previous decision to support the law in 2002.

As a result, males standing accused in pending cases will see their charges dropped, while those who were convicted will have their punishments dropped if they request a review.

Until the ruling, a man convicted on charges of violating what many critics call an outdated law would have faced a prison term of up to two years or a five million won ($4,300) fine.

"The Constitution guarantees people's right to pursue happiness. Sexual freedom is part of that. So this law goes against that spirit," said Lee Kang-kook, the chief justice of the nine-member court.

"The law has apparently challenged sexual equality by putting undue responsibility on men. Also, it overly restricts people's private life, including sex, under the name of protecting women from men who con women into bed with the false promise of marriage."

Lee added the promise of marriage is usually verbal, which makes it extremely difficult to prove in court whether a man actually used the ruse for sex.

"Even if the promise was sincere at the time of sex, the commitment can be broken later if parents oppose the union or other external factors occur," he said.

The decision follows petitions by two men who were convicted of the violation of the 56-year-old law, which has frequently been criticized by feminists for its "chauvinistic element."

But it has also been used by some women as a means to extort money from men by threatening to sue after sex, claiming they'd only gone to bed with the men after they'd been proposed to.

Noh Hee-bum, the spokesman for the court, said the decision was made in respect of the rapidly changing sexual culture of society as well as global trends.

"Only a couple of countries maintain similar laws and they are even being abolished," Noh said.

Turkey, Cuba, Romania and a few other countries maintain the law, according to the court. Some states in America retain a similar rule, but their number has been rapidly decreasing, it added.

In fact, the law was being used more and more infrequently for criminal punishment.

In the 1980s, more than 2,600 suits were filed per year. But the number dropped to 750 in 2000. The statistics in 2006, the latest available, show 770 cases were reported but, of them, only 42 or 5.8 percent were sent to court for trial.

The law was first introduced to Korea in 1953 as a leftover of the legal system of Japanese colonial rule. Japan has since abolished it.

pss@koreatimes.co.kr