By Choi Sung-jin
Which is more important in a couple’s relationship: the wife’s privacy or marital trust?
A Vietnamese woman who married a Korean man did not tell him she gave birth to a child after being raped when she was 13. When the husband learned what had happened, he filed to cancel their marriage and sought 30 million won ($24,300) in compensation.
Lower courts sided with the husband, ruling that hiding the birth of a child was tantamount to fraud, which was enough to cancel a contract in accordance with Civil Laws. “Had the husband known the fact, he would not have married her,” the courts ruled.
But the Supreme Court took a different view on Monday. The top court overturned the original conviction, which approved the cancellation of marriage and alimony of 3 million won, and sent the case back to the district court.
“The concealing of past childbirth belongs to individuals’ private area, an essential part of their honors and privacy,” it said. “Mere failure to notify the experience of childbirth does not conform to reasons for nullifying marriages.”
Feminist groups and helpers of immigrant wives welcomed the decision, saying it demonstrated common sense and legal justice were alive and well in Korean society. “If we force the woman, a victim of child sexual violence, to disclose it, that will seriously infringe on the constitutional right of personality, the self-determining right of personal information and privacy,” they said.
Some corners of judicial community opposed the ruling.
“This ruling is a one-sided protection of privacy,” a lawyer said. “Marriage is a contract between man and wife, which calls for them to inform their partners truthfully about their past and present identity. The top court has made civil law meaningless.”
The husband learned about his wife’s past in the course of a criminal suit that she filed. She claimed her father-in-law -- her husband’s stepfather -- violated her sexually at least three times, and her husband did almost nothing about it.