Korean Law in English
Laws › Criminal Act › SECTION 1 Commission of Crime and Mitigation or Exemption of Sentence

Criminal Act — Article 16 (Misunderstanding of Law)

형법 제16조

This English translation is based on the Korean text effective 2023-08-08. The Korean law has since been amended (current version effective 2026-10-02) — check the Korean original.

When a person commits a crime not knowing that his or her act constitutes a crime under existing statutes or regulations, he or she shall not be punishable if the misunderstanding is based on reasonable grounds.

‹ Article 15All articlesArticle 17 ›

Korean original (law.go.kr) · Get articles as JSON via API

For AI agents and developers — get this article as JSON, with the English and current Korean effective dates and an outdated-translation flag, from the korea-law API or as an MCP tool: https://mcp.apify.com?tools=kr-data/korea-law