Will “Goo Hara Act” Finally Pass National Assembly? Constitutional Court Calls It “Unconstitutional” For Parents Who Abandoned Their Children To Inherit Property
The Constitutional Court ruled that the system of forced inheritance of a certain proportion or more of the inheritance to siblings regardless of the deceased's will is unconstitutional
According to the legal community on April 25th, the Constitutional Court made a unanimous decision on the unconstitutionality of Article 1112, Section 4 of the Civil Code on this day.
The Constitutional Court stated, “Granting inheritance rights to siblings of the deceased, even though their contribution to the formation of the inherited property or expectations about the inherited property are hardly recognized, is difficult to justify.”
The current Civil Code forces family members to have a certain share of the property left by the deceased.
In addition, the Constitutional Court ruled the provisions of Article 1112, Paragraphs 1 to 3 of the Civil Code, which regulate inheritance to direct lineal ascendants & descendants (parents, children) and spouses of the deceased, as unconstitutional.
The Constitutional Court determined that granting inheritance to family members who have long neglected or abused the deceased contradicts the sense of justice and common sense of the people.
There have been criticisms that the inheritance system has lagged behind social changes, particularly in cases like the controversy surrounding the inheritance rights claimed by the estranged mother of the late singer Goo Hara.
Although the so-called “Goo Hara Act”, which limits the authority to request inheritance, was proposed in the 20th National Assembly, it was scrapped due to the expiration of the session. It is still pending in the 21st National Assembly without passage.
A petition on the National Assembly’s public petition website in April 2020 regarding the “Goo Hara Act” (amending the Civil Code to add cases of disqualification for inheritance in cases of significant neglect of duty of support to direct lineal ascendants & descendants and easing the requirements for recognizing contributions) garnered agreement from over 100,000 people.
Attention is now focused on whether the Goo Hara Act will pass through the National Assembly following the Constitutional Court’s ruling.
Source: Daum
