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

Criminal Act — Article 23 (Self-Help)

형법 제23조

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.

(1) Where it is impossible to preserve a claim by legal procedures, an act performed in order to prevent its execution from being impossible or significantly impracticable shall not be punishable when there are reasonable grounds.

(2) Where an act prescribed in paragraph (1) has exceeded reasonable limits, the punishment may be mitigated or remitted depending on the circumstances.[This Article Wholly Amended on Dec. 8, 2020]

‹ Article 22All articlesArticle 24 ›

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For AI agents and developers — get this article as JSON, with the English and current Korean effective dates and an outdated-translation flag, from the korea-law API or as an MCP tool: https://mcp.apify.com?tools=kr-data/korea-law