The constitutional court of korea strikes down laws of inheritance that reserve a portion of the deceased person’s estate for the surviving family members. The discussion regarding this system started concerns over the constitutionality of the system when singer Goo Hara died in 2019 and when her mother claimed her right to the inheritance, who had been out of her life for 20 long years.
According to the existing civil code, even if the deceased wrote a will which excludes the surviving family members, their spouse and children are still entitled to half of the legal minimum assigned to them, while parents and siblings are entitled to one-third of the portions they would have received in the absence of a will.
The court’s ruling overturns a half-century-old inheritance system, which was introduced in 1977, to guarantee the rights of the bereaved and the welfare of a deceased person’s surviving kin. The system has come under increasing fire for preventing people from disposing of their estate as they see fit or from totally disinheriting estranged and abusive family members. The Constitutional Court ruled that the legal reserve of inheritance system, which forces siblings, children, spouses, and parents to inherit more than a certain percentage of their estate regardless of the deceased's wishes, was unconstitutional.
The court’s ruling overturns a half-century-old inheritance system that was initially established to guarantee the welfare of a deceased person’s surviving kin. The system however sought attention when they started misusing and became abusive.
Article 1112 clauses 1-3 of the Civil Code, are proposed to be amended.
Although opponents of the Civil Code’s provisions on family inheritance have long criticized the law for infringing on personal property rights, the Constitutional Court upheld the principle of minimum inheritance enshrined in Article 1112 in two previous rulings issued in 2010 and 2013.
The Constitutional Court ruled against the minimum inheritance portions reserved for siblings in its unanimous decision, that the siblings are hardly recognized as having contributed to the asset accumulation of the dead.
