South Korea's Constitutional Court on Thursday struck down a 62-year-old law that made adultery an offense punishable by up to two years in prison, citing the country's changing sexual mores and a growing emphasis on individual rights.
"It has become difficult to say that there is a consensus on whether adultery should be punished as a criminal offense," five of the court's nine justices said in a joint opinion. "It should be left to the free will and love of people to decide whether to maintain marriage, and the matter should not be externally forced through a criminal code."
Two other justices voted to declare the law unconstitutional for other reasons. A two-thirds majority was required to strike down the law.
An estimated 53,000 South Koreans have been indicted under the law since the authorities began keeping count in 1985. But in recent years, it has been increasingly rare for defendants to go to prison, in part because courts have demanded stronger proof that sexual intercourse had taken place. Additionally, more plaintiffs have been dropping charges after reaching financial settlements.
The law had been challenged four times before at the Constitutional Court since 1990, always unsuccessfully. In the last attempt -- a 2008 case files by popular actress Ok So-Ri, whose husband had pressed a criminal complaint against her -- the justices came within one vote of striking the law down.
More than 5,000 people who have been indicted on adultery charges since that 2008 ruling can now seek a new trial or, if they have not been convicted, demand that the charges be dropped.
The adultery law was adopted in 1953, with the stated purpose of protecting women who had little recourse against cheating husbands in a male-dominated society. But divorce rates and women's economic and legal standing have soared in the decades since, leaving many to argue that the law had outlived its usefulness.
Others, however, considered it a necessary option for wronged wives in a society which, despite its rapid change, is still largely traditional and male-centered.
Yet with courts demanding a higher standard of evidence, it has been difficult for plaintiffs to prove adultery.
In their opinion Thursday, the five justices said they doubted the law was still useful in preventing adultery. Instead, they said, it has been used to blackmail married women or by spouses to force a divorce.
Two of the nine justices voted to uphold the law, warning that abolishing it could lead to "disorder in sexual morality," encourage extramarital affairs and undermine family life.
A Section on 02/27/2015