[Editorial] Conscientious Resistance to Military Draft is Guilty

With its guilty verdict on the so-called conscientious draft resisters, it has called a halt to the confusion created as a result of mixed rulings in the lower courts. The ruling by the general panel at the highest court was timely in that it gave unifying guidelines for legislative interpretation in many similar cases that are still pending.

The ruling confirmed the fact that a healthy adult male is not allowed to dodge the duty of national defense for religious beliefs in the Republic of Korea, which adopts a universal draft. Therefore, the lower court’s acquittal, which it said was based on freedom of conscience, ended up as a one-time, “jumpy” ruling.

Freedom of conscience and the duty of national defense are constitutional values, neither of which should be renounced. The Constitutional Court said, “Freedom of conscience, the individual right, cannot be considered a more supreme value than the security of the country designed to safeguard the reverence and values of the entire nation.” In the circumstances conditioned by the confrontation with North Korea, even legislative interpretations cannot help but tilt toward the value of the continual existence of the state.

However, the issue over Jehovah’s Witnesses who would go to prison, rather than military service, has yet to be addressed. We should still wait for the Constitutional Court, which rules on constitutionality, to decide it. The fundamental issue has yet to be resolved. We expect the Constitutional Court to make a rational decision on the conflict of the two constitutional values.

Some argues that an alternative to military service should be allowed for Jehovah’s Witnesses who refuse to put up arms. However, what should be considered sufficiently first are the repercussions it would bring onto followers of other religions, the military, and the morale of draft-aged males. This is up to the legislature which introduces or revises legislation after considering public opinion.