Three out of 10 surveyed South Koreans said they have been violated of their basic rights protected by the Constitution at least once, a survey showed Wednesday.

The Constitutional Court said it surveyed 6,552 citizens to ask whether they have experienced being violated of their basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution and 1,997 responded yes.

The survey was conducted from July 15 to Aug. 15 on the occasion of the 68th anniversary of the July 17 Constitution Day.

Most violation, or 30.5 percent, concerned the Constitution’s Article 34 that stipulates “All citizens shall be entitled to a life worthy of human beings.”

This was followed by Article 17 which says “The privacy of no citizen shall be infringed,” at 27.2 percent, Article 18 which says “The privacy of correspondence of no citizen shall be infringed,” at 23.5 percent, and Article 21 which says “All citizens shall enjoy freedom of speech and the press, and freedom of assembly and association.”

Despite claiming to have suffered from the violations, the majority, or 67.1 percent, of the respondents did not plan to file a constitutional complaint.

Most, or 33.2 percent, said the reason for staying silent was “fear of receiving any kind of disadvantage.” Others cited burdensome legal fees (16.3 percent) and lack of knowledge regarding the constitutional complaint submission process (14.5 percent).

“The survey exposed the desperate need for us to promote further and offer better guidelines regarding the system of filing a constitutional complaint,” said an official from the court. 

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)