An appellate court has overruled the lowest court's decision and ruled in favor of a same-sex couple that filed an administrative lawsuit against the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) asking for recognition of their qualifications for the health insurance dependent policy.

The ruling overturned the judgment of the lowest court, which ruled in favor of the NHIS last year, saying that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. 

However, the appellate court did not provide its reasoning for overturning the lowest court's ruling.

The court ruling comes after Kim Yong-min, who is an employer insurance plan policyholder, registered So Seong-wook, his spouse whom he married in 2019, as a dependent in February 2020.

However, the NHIS ordered So to pay insurance premiums saying that he did not meet the conditions for dependent recognition in October 2020.

In response, So filed an administrative lawsuit in February 2021, saying, "It goes against the purpose of the dependent system to deny qualification as a dependent for health insurance due to same sex, even though it is a real marriage relationship."

The NHIS recognizes the status of dependents of employer insurance plans, even for spouses in a common-law relationship who have not registered their marriage.

So argued that not recognizing a spouse as a dependent just because he is of the same sex was discrimination.

In January 2022, the lowest court ruled against So saying, "It is difficult to evaluate the relationship between two people of the same sex as a common-law marriage relationship under the current legal system.”

"Civil law, the precedents of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, and the general perception of our society, judges that marriage is still a fundamental element of the union of a man and a woman," the lowest court said in its ruling. "There is no basis for extending this interpretation to same-sex marriage. "