NHRCK: "Excessive Restrictions on Active Duty Air Force Service for Color Vision Deficiency Violate Equality Rights"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] The National Human Rights Commission has determined that the Air Force is excessively restricting color vision deficiencies in recruiting active-duty soldiers.

On the 3rd, the Human Rights Commission announced that it recommended the Chief of Staff of the Air Force to improve and implement the current Air Force active-duty soldier selection system, which excessively restricts applicants with color vision deficiencies. It also ordered the Minister of National Defense to review the extent and necessity of restrictions based on color vision deficiencies when selecting active-duty soldiers across all military branches and to improve related systems to prevent unfair disadvantages without reasonable grounds.

Last year, the father of a young man who tried to apply for active-duty service in the Air Force but had to give up due to color vision deficiency filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, arguing that the Air Force’s policy of allowing applicants with color vision deficiency to apply for only 4 out of 48 military specialties (military band, honor guard, medical, and culinary) constitutes unfair discrimination.

The Human Rights Commission judged that allowing active-duty applicants to freely choose their application timing and field corresponds to the constitutionally guaranteed "right to self-determination."

Furthermore, it determined that the Air Force’s blanket restriction on applicants with mild color vision deficiencies, except for the 4 specialties, is an excessive limitation on fundamental rights.

The Human Rights Commission pointed out, "Although the necessity and degree of color vision discrimination may vary depending on the tasks performed within units, the Air Force uniformly imposed a complete restriction on the eligibility of applicants with color vision deficiency without a specific analysis of the necessity or degree of color vision discrimination for each task."

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