"Seonggyungwan to Propose Opinions Related to Constitutional Incompatibility"
As the government is considering reducing the prohibited range of marriage between relatives from the 8th degree to within the 4th degree, sparking a 'consanguineous marriage controversy,' Choi Jong-su, President of Sungkyunkwan University, warned, "If the Ministry of Justice pushes this forward, we will mobilize all our capabilities to block it."
President Choi appeared on KBS Radio's 'Jeonggyeok Sisa' on the 14th and said, "The 8th degree refers to descendants of great-great-grandfathers, and such relationships are called dangnaegan (within the same clan). Traditionally, they are people who perform ancestral rites together." He added, "Nevertheless, if this is denied and marriage occurs, our unique family system will collapse."
Article 809, Paragraph 1 of the current Civil Act prohibits marriage between blood relatives within the 8th degree, and Article 815, Item 2 stipulates that marriages within the 8th degree are null and void if the man and woman marry. However, in 2022, the Constitutional Court ruled that Article 809, Paragraph 1 is constitutional, but found that Article 815, Item 2 violated the principle of excessive prohibition and declared it unconstitutional.
President Choi said, "We need to approach the two issues differently," adding, "The first judgment is correct, but the unconstitutionality ruling is a special case. Special cases should be handled specially, and applying it uniformly and universally is problematic." He also expressed concern about confusion, saying, "If a 5th-degree paternal uncle becomes an in-law, should we call him a paternal uncle or an in-law?"
Professor Hyun So-hye of Sungkyunkwan University Law School, who was commissioned by the Ministry of Justice to conduct research on the prohibited range of marriage, has proposed reducing the prohibited range to blood relatives within the 4th degree. The reasons include that the sense of family bonding significantly decreases beyond the 5th degree, and there is no correlation with the incidence of genetic diseases caused by consanguineous marriage.
Regarding this, President Choi emphasized, "Allowing consanguineous marriage just because family bonds have weakened is putting the cart before the horse," and stressed, "It is more important to devise ways to strengthen family bonds."
On the incidence of genetic diseases related to consanguineous marriage, he said, "It is a reality that serious problems occur when recessive genes are inherited," adding, "Even 0.1% is an enormous number when viewed across the entire ethnic group. Our people have been able to become one of the most outstanding ethnic groups in the world because consanguineous marriage was prohibited." He also stated, "I have not yet had an interview with the Minister of Justice, but we have started practical discussions with the Ministry of Justice," and "Sungkyunkwan University plans to propose how to respond to the unconstitutionality ruling."
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