South Korea's Constitutional Court has ruled that a criminal law provision imposing heavier punishment on those who kill a parent or other lineal ascendant than on other murderers does not violate the Constitution.
The court said on the 22nd that it upheld Article 250, Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Act, which defines the crime of killing a lineal ascendant, in an 8-1 decision.
The provision calls for the death penalty, life imprisonment or a prison term of at least seven years for anyone who kills a lineal ascendant of themselves or their spouse. By comparison, ordinary murder carries the death penalty, life imprisonment or a prison term of at least five years.
The court also upheld the same provision in July 2013, in a 7-2 decision on a constitutional appeal.
The court found there were reasonable grounds for the heavier punishment. "Killing a lineal ascendant fundamentally damages the special bond and relationship of trust formed between parent and child and destroys the foundation on which the family community rests, making it highly unlawful and highly blameworthy," the court said. "There are reasonable grounds for lawmakers to have taken this into account in setting a heavier statutory penalty than for ordinary murder."
The court also found it difficult to view the statutory penalty for the crime as excessively harsh. It rejected the argument that the equality principle is breached because the law increases penalties only for killing a parent, with no separate aggravated provision for killing a child or spouse.
Justice Ma Eun-hyeok dissented, arguing that the provision violates the principle of proportionality between culpability and punishment. "There are crimes driven by greed that defy all family morality, but there are also crimes that occur when anger built up over years of violence or abuse by a lineal ascendant erupts," the justice said. "For that reason, when such a killing occurs, it is difficult to conclude that the act is more blameworthy than the killing of someone other than a lineal ascendant simply because the perpetrator is a lineal descendant."
The petitioner in the case, identified as A, was caring in 2021 for a father who was gravely ill, at a time when the family could not afford the hospital bills, and caused his death by cutting off food, water and other nutrition. A was indicted on a charge of killing a lineal ascendant and sentenced to four years in prison. A applied during the final appeal for a request to be made for a constitutional review of the aggravated punishment provision, but the application was dismissed and the four-year sentence was finalized. A then filed a constitutional appeal in May 2022.