This is a historic first. In South Korea, the rights of a same-sex couple were recognized by a court on Tuesday, February 21. A decision hailed by activists as an important victory for the rights of LGBT people.

The case, which will now go to the Supreme Court, was initiated by So Seong-wook and Kim Yong-min, two men who married in 2019 in a ceremony that has no legal validity in the country. under South Korean law, which does not recognize same-sex marriages.

In 2021, Mr So sued the country’s public health insurance service, the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), after benefits for his partner, who was registered as a dependent, were cut off after the NHIS discovered that Mr. So and Mr. Kim were a same-sex couple. A lower court ruled in favor of the NHIS in 2022.

A decision that “provides hope”

But, in a major reversal, the Seoul High Court overturned that decision on Tuesday, ordering the health insurance department to restore Mr. Kim’s benefits. “Today our rights are recognized within the legal system,” Kim said, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. ” We are happy. This is not only our victory, [it is] also a victory for many same-sex couples and LGBTQ families in Korea,” the couple said after the judgment, according to their lawyer Park Han. -hee.

The court held that the NHIS failed to provide “substantial rational reasons” for treating same-sex unions differently from common-law opposite-sex unions. The NHIS allows common law cohabitants to benefit from its benefits.

“Anyone can [be] a minority, and [being] a minority just means being different from the majority, not being wrong or wrong,” the court’s decision argues. “It is recognized that the discriminatory practice found in this case violates the principle of equality,” the Seoul High Court concluded. The NHIS told Agence France-Presse that it was going to appeal.

“This judgment is significant because it is the first decision, taken by a court of any level in South Korea, which legally recognizes same-sex couples,” observed Jang Boram of Amnesty International in a communicated. While South Korea still has a “long way [to go] to end discrimination … this decision gives hope that prejudice can be overcome,” said Jang Boram.

Seoul does not criminalize same-sex relationships, but marriages are not recognized and many LGBT people tend to live under the radar. Activists have long insisted on the need for a law against discrimination based on sexual orientation, but no text has yet reached a consensus of South Korean parliamentarians.