Seoul military service ruling

– The Supreme Court of South Korea said yesterday that conscientious objection is a valid reason to refuse mandatory military service, a landmark change in the court’s decades-long stance.

The full-bench decision overturns about five decades of precedents that punished conscientious objectors for refusing mandatory military service and is in step with changing South Korean attitudes as relations with North Korea thaw.

The court’s decision concerned only one defendant, Oh – a 34-year-old Jehovah’s Witness whose trial court guilty verdict was upheld at the appellate court.

Through decisions in 1969 and 2004, South Korea’s Supreme Court had maintained that religious beliefs or conscience were not valid reasons to refuse mandatory military service.

South Korea’s Military Service Act says that if a conscripted person refuses “without valid reason” the person is to be given jail time of up to three years.

Some 930 cases are in court concerning alleged violations of the act, according to Jarrod Lopes, spokesperson for Jehovah’s Witnesses’ world headquarters.

There had been signs of a change in attitude towards mandatory military service, with the Constitutional Court in June ruling that the current law – which does not specify alternatives to military service – does not align with the country’s constitution.

There were also a number of “not guilty” verdicts in lower courts for conscientious objectors. –