By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
Convicted adulterers will no longer risk up to two years in prison in South Korea, as the country's Constitutional Court abandoned a decades-old prohibition on marital infidelity Thursday.
Since 1985 alone, more than 50,000 South Korean citizens have been indicted under Article 241, which has now been deemed unconstitutional.
"The article violates individuals' freedom to choose their sexual partners and their right to privacy," a majority of the court's justices stated, as quoted by local news agency Yonhap.
"Not only is the anti-adultery law gradually losing its place in the world, it no longer reflects our people's way of thinking."
The court's bench ruled 7-2 in favor of throwing out the law -- those in opposition reportedly argued that the ban on infidelity was needed to conserve social values.
Both male and female adulterers have faced punishment under South Korean law since 1953, the same year that the Korean War ended.
Marriages have been protected in one form or another on the Korean Peninsula for millennia -- critics in the past pointed out that women often felt the brunt of the prohibition.
A notable case was brought to the fore when actress Ok So-ri was convicted of cheating on her husband in 2008, with the Constitutional Court ruling against her at the time.
Following Thursday’s decision, anyone convicted under Article 241 since the end of October 2008 -- when the last constitutional ruling was made -- can ask for a retrial.
