We’ve been asked about a criminal charge against an adultery under Korean criminal law quite often. Foreign employees in Korean should be cautious that such an adultery is a crime under Korean law. Here is a real example of such a case where a foreign officer committed a adultery and the company(employer)’s legal concern made it ask some legal consultations to our law firm regarding the adultery law and criminal law process in Korea.
Q) Mr. XX, who is a head director of our company, committed an adultery and was charged by the Korean prosecutor. He has confessed his guilty and the prosecutor demanded one year’s imprisonment for his crime to the court. If the court finalize that Mr. XX is guilty, is that means that Mr. XX will be imprisonment for one year or lesser?
A) Finding guilty does not always mean Mr. XX will be imprisoned. The Court may SUSPEND the imprisonment for certain years even though Mr. XX is guilty. The Korean Criminal Act provides that a married person who commits adultery shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than two years. However, the Act also provides the execution of the sentence for an adultery can be suspended for a period of not less than one year but not more than five years. Moreover, in recent adultery cases, the Korean Court tends to hand down such a suspended imprisonment sentence more frequently than non-suspended sentence as long as the accused has never committed a crime before and he or she confesses and reflects on his crime sincerely.
Q) What would be the negative publicity to the Company?
A) I’m sorry this is not what I, as a lawyer, can answer properly.
Q) Were there any past cases convicted guilty and imprisoned? Can you quote me a few cases?
A) Yes, so many cases. However, as I mentioned above, recently there are even more cases of suspended imprisonment.
I hope this to be of assistance to your business. If you have more questions related to this issue or anything on your business in Korea, please do not hesitate contact me.
© 2009 Mr. Wonil Chung, a Korean Lawyer/Chung & Partners, a Korean Law Firm. All rights reserved. Some copyrights, photos, icons, trademarks, trade dress, or other commercial symbols that appear on this post are the property of the respective owners.
