Canceling naturalization proper for man committing bigamy: court

A marriage migrant will have his Korean citizenship cancelled as he was in a common-law marriage with someone else in his home country, a local court ruled, Tuesday. / Yonhap

By Kim Jae-heun

A naturalized citizen will have his Korean citizenship cancelled as he was in a common-law marriage with someone else in his home country, a local court ruled, Tuesday.

The Seoul Administrative Court ruled against a man who requested the court to annul the justice ministry's revocation of his naturalization here.

The man from an Islamic country married a Korean woman in 2004 and the ministry approved his naturalization in 2014.

But the man had previously entered into a common-law marriage with another woman from his native country in 2009, and had a daughter. In his country, bigamy is permitted whereas it is illegal in Korea.

But his common-law marriage was discovered after he divorced his Korean wife in 2015 and attempted to bring the other woman and their daughter from his homeland to Korea.

The ministry launched an investigation into the man and decided to cancel his naturalization after concluding he obtained Korean citizenship illegally.

However, the man filed a suit against the ministry, arguing that he had not officially registered his marriage with the woman in his homeland, thus he did not breach the Korean law banning bigamy. He further claimed all his documents submitted to the ministry to acquire naturalization were not forged or falsified and he'd had a normal marital relationship with the Korean woman.

But the local court did not rule in his favor.

“Practicing monogamy is an important part of Korea's law and order according to the Constitution and civil laws. Even if the man's marriage was not registered officially in his native country, it should be taken as an important factor for the government when making a decision related to naturalization,” it said.

“The ministry has discretionary power to refuse or revoke citizenship of naturalized Koreans after reviewing if they will obey the laws of Korea. Therefore, the man's maintaining a common-law marriage while married to a Korean woman is an important factor to revoke his naturalization.”