Civil Rights
Citizens of the Republic of Korea are guaranteed several rights by Chapter II of the Constitution. These rights include (but are not limited to):
- freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and the press;
- the rights to vote, hold public office, and petition the government;
- protections against double jeopardy, involuntary labor, ex post facto laws, and warrantless searches of residences; and
- the rights of education, work, marriage, and health
In addition to the rights granted in this section of the Constitution, two duties are imposed upon citizens of the Republic of Korea: the duty to pay taxes and the duty to enter into military service. In addition, Article 37(2) provides that the "freedoms and rights of citizens may be restricted by law only when necessary for national security, the maintenance of law and order, or for public welfare."
One limitation placed on civil rights in South Korea is the National Security Act, which limits "anti-government activities." In particular, the National Security Act criminalizes activities such as promoting anti-government ideologies (especially communism) or joining anti-government organizations. The Constitutional Court has narrowed the applicational scope of the National Security Act over the years.
Nevertheless, Korean activist lawyers had managed to become a formidable institution within Korea's legal system, in part due to the election of Roh Moo-hyun as president.
Read more about this topic: Korean Law
Famous quotes by civil rights:
“Children’s liberation is the next item on our civil rights shopping list.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (b. 1939)
“... as a result of generations of betrayal, it’s nearly impossible for Southern Negroes to trust a Southern white. No matter what he does or what he suffers, a white liberal is never established beyond suspicion in the hearts of the minority.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 10 (1962)
“... one of the blind spots of most Negroes is their failure to realize that small overtures from whites have a large significance ... I now realize that this feeling inevitably takes possession of one in the bitter struggle for equality. Indeed, I share it. Yet I wonder how we can expect total acceptance to step full grown from the womb of prejudice, with no embryo or infancy or childhood stages.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)
“Virtue and vice suppose the freedom to choose between good and evil; but what can be the morals of a woman who is not even in possession of herself, who has nothing of her own, and who all her life has been trained to extricate herself from the arbitrary by ruse, from constraint by using her charms?... As long as she is subject to man’s yoke or to prejudice, as long as she receives no professional education, as long as she is deprived of her civil rights, there can be no moral law for her!”
—Flora Tristan (1803–1844)