SEOUL (AFP) — South Korea's defence ministry has asked the country's Constitutional Court to uphold a ban on homosexuals serving in the military, a ministry spokesman said Monday.
The ban has been under review since a local military court asked the upper tribunal in August to determine whether the existing military criminal code banning homosexuality among soldiers is constitutional.
The code stipulates that soldiers be jailed for up to one year for engaging in homosexual acts or sexual harassment while in service.
At stake is whether the military rules violate the constitutional right to equality, privacy and freedom of sexuality, defence officials said.
Homsexuality is not illegal in South Korea but a defence ministry spokesman said it supported the ban for the military, and had urged the Constitutional Court to rule in its favour.
"The military has a unique characteristics," the spokesman told AFP.
"It has to maintain good combat capability. It requires a sound group life. It works for the public interest rather than personal happiness."
The petition by the local military court argues that the code is unclear, and must be clarified to establish whether it covers sex by mutual agreement, or harassment between males, between females or between a male and female.
The petition also says it may be "overly-regulated" to slap a jail term on soldiers who have sex by mutual consent.
The Constitutional Court, which last examined the code in 2002, ruled then that the ban was legally valid.
Local military courts dealt with 176 cases of homosexual acts or acts of sexual harassment bewteen 2004 and 2007. Four of them involved sex by mutual agreement, according to data carried by Yonhap news agency.
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