Can You Get Fired For Adultery?

Can you get fired for adultery?

Japanese Democratic Party lawmaker Shiori Yamao recently resigned from her party amid allegations of an affair with a lawyer who is her junior by 9 years.

The lawmaker said: “I’m deeply sorry my misleading behaviour caused trouble to many people. I’ve decided to leave the party to avoid bringing any confusion to the upcoming extraordinary Diet session.”

According to Japanese tabloid Shukan Bunshun, the 43-year-old was secretly seeing Rintaro Kuramochi about 4 times a week. They had allegedly spent the night together at a high-end hotel in Tokyo on 3 September 2017. Yamao denies the allegations and insisted that she stayed at the hotel by herself.

See: Tomohiro Osaki, “Lawmaker Yamao resigns from the DP after alleged extramarital affair deepens opposition party’s crisis”, Japan Times, 7 September 2017

Closer to home, (alleged) extramarital affairs has caused Mr Michael Palmer (former Speaker of Parliament), Mr Yaw Shin Leong (former Opposition Member of Parliament) and Mr David Ong (former PAP Member of Parliament).

This leads to the question: Can you get fired for adultery?

In general, many companies do not meddle with the private lives of their employees. However, I have encountered cases where the third party is a co-worker. In cases as such, the careers of both the third party and the co-worker may be affected.

Be that as it may, I am not an expert on employment law.

Can you get fired for adultery? It is really a matter between the employer and the employee in question.