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| The Supreme Court building in Seocho, southern Seoul / Yonhap |
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that citizenship obtained through bad faith marriages faith should not be recognized, marking the first ruling on "sham marriages" as a means of getting citizenship.
Upholding a lower court's ruling, the top court found a Chinese national, whose identity has been withheld, guilty of violating the relevant passport and immigration laws.
The woman entered Korea in 1995 with a fake identification card and then married a local man for the purpose of immigration fraud, according to a court document.
She then got a Korean passport under a fake name and married another Chinese man in 2012, the document showed. She entered and departed Korea a total of 12 times between 2013 and 2017 with the fake passport.
"Korean nationality obtained through a fake marriage should not be recognized," the court said in its ruling.
The ruling further said crimes related to obtaining citizenship through any fraudulent method should be punished sternly.
This is the first time the Supreme Court delivered a ruling stipulating that citizenship should be annulled when a marriage itself is annulled. (Yonhap)
