Responding to a South Korean High Court decision ordering the country’s national health insurance service to resume coverage for a partner in a same-sex relationship, Amnesty International’s East Asia Researcher Boram Jang said:
“This is an important decision that moves South Korea closer to achieving marriage equality. There is still a long way to go to end discrimination against the LGBTI community, but this ruling offers hope that prejudice can be overcome.
Background:
South Korea’s High Court today ordered the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) to resume coverage for a partner in a same-sex relationship.
On 7 January 2022, the Seoul Administrative Court dismissed an administrative lawsuit filed by So Seong-wook against the NHIS for denying insurance coverage by not recognizing his partner Kim Yong-min as a dependent. Seong-wook appealed the decision to the High Court on 21 January 2022.
The couple held a wedding ceremony in 2019 and live together as a married couple, though their relationship is not recognized under South Korean law. They had been the first same-sex couple to be able to register a ‘dependent’ under the NHIS but the NHIS cancelled this dependent status eight months later.
Taiwan became the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage in May 2019. Legislation recognizing marriage between same-sex couples went into effect this month in Slovenia and Andorra, bringing the global total of countries recognizing same-sex marriage in law to 33.