It’s time to engage in extra-marital sex without fear of prosecution, South Korea’s constitutional court has ruled, effectively ending a 62-year ban. Condom stocks soared immediately after the ruling.
South Korea, until Thursday, was one of the few non-Muslim countries which struggled with the law on this matter. North Korea and Taiwan are among the others.
The Constitutional Court believes the law is an attack on personal freedoms. This means anyone tried since October 21, 2008, when the court had upheld the ban, could get a second shot at justice, while current charges can be thrown out.
The number of charged stands at 5,400 people in the period between November 2008 and January 2015, according to the prosecutor’s office.
The most that South Koreans had previously risked was two years in prison, but that figure probably sounds less impressive than the number caught in the act and prosecuted since 1985. That stands at 53,000. Prison sentences, though, turned out to be quite rare.
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