Legal change to require men convicted of draft dodging to serve despite criminal record

After a Korean man avoided active duty military service in 2021 by faking medical conditions, he received a two-year suspended sentence for evasion. But a new law will require draft dodgers like him to serve anyway.

A bill mandating that able-bodied conscription evaders complete their military service was promulgated on June 9, with the law set to take effect in December. 

The man who was sentenced began faking depression in 2019, receiving a Grade 4 — requiring conscripts to serve as social service agents rather than in the military — during a physical examination in 2021. After the Supreme Court upheld the suspended sentence last year, the man was barred from active duty service due to his criminal record. 

All men fit for service in Korea must fulfill military obligations for 18 to 21 months. But under the previous rules, men with criminal records were prohibited from serving in the military, and in some cases, from working as social service agents in public welfare, administrative or community service sectors. 

This allowed able-bodied men to avoid active duty by criminally evading the draft through such methods as faking medical documents or purposefully injuring themselves. 

The bill proposed by then-Democratic Party Rep. Ahn Gyu-back, now the minister of national defense, along with several other lawmakers, aims to close that loophole. 

Under the revised law, courts will issue separate sentences when draft evasion overlaps with other crimes, ensuring that convicts found guilty of other crimes are still deemed unfit for military duty and remain barred from active service.

The law currently only makes a distinction for sentencing. A convict who is handed a prison term of six to 18 months or a suspended sentence of one year or longer is assigned to alternative social services, while a prison term of 18 months or longer results in a comprehensive ban from any form of conscripted service.

The revision comes as the Military Manpower Administration uncovered 877 cases of attempted evasion with false records from 2012 to 2025. 

The government's efforts to broaden the pool of eligible conscripts come as the number of Korean military personnel continues to fall, dropping from around 560,000 in 2019 to about 450,000 in 2025, according to the Ministry of National Defense. 

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [[email protected]]