Constitutional Court: "Applying Statutory Rape to Adults Having Sexual Relations with Minors Aged 13-16 is Constitutional"

First Judgment on the Expansion of Punishment Scope

The Constitutional Court has ruled that the current law, which punishes adults who have sexual relations with minors aged 13 to under 16 by applying the crime of statutory rape of minors, does not violate the Constitution. This is the first ruling regarding the expansion of the scope of statutory rape of minors from 'under 13' to '13 to under 16' following the related law amendment in May 2020.

Constitutional Court (Photo by Yonhap News)

According to the legal community on the 1st, the Constitutional Court recently unanimously upheld the constitutionality of a constitutional complaint case concerning Article 305, Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Act, related to Articles 297, 297-2, and 298. This provision punishes adults aged 19 or older who commit intercourse or molestation against minors aged 13 to under 16 as rape, quasi-rape, or forced molestation, regardless of the minor’s consent.

The Court stated, "Persons aged 13 to under 16, like those under 13, cannot fully exercise their sexual self-determination rights," and added, "Even if sexual acts are performed with consent, such consent is based on an incomplete understanding of the meaning of sexual acts and cannot be regarded as the exercise of full sexual self-determination rights."

Furthermore, the Court noted, "Since there are no objective standards or methods to measure an individual's maturity, judgment ability, or discernment, it is inevitable to categorize the scope of perpetrators and victims definitively and unilaterally by age."

The Court especially emphasized, "The legislative intent is to strongly protect youths under 16 from increasingly sophisticated online sexual crimes and grooming sexual offenses," and stated, "Limiting the scope of victims to persons with specific relationships such as 'work, employment, caregiving, or education' would make it difficult to achieve the legislative purpose."

However, unlike those under 13, the Court judged that limiting the perpetrators to adults aged 19 or older in cases involving victims aged 13 to under 16 "reflects the consideration that sexual acts between minors with small differences in age or developmental level should be regarded as the exercise of sexual self-determination without psychological impairment and should be respected."

The petitioner, Mr. A, who filed this constitutional complaint, was prosecuted for having intercourse with a 15-year-old victim in October 2020. Mr. A argued that the provision applying statutory rape of minors violated the principle of proportionality and infringed on sexual self-determination rights and the freedom of privacy, but his claim was rejected.